


For the Secret of the Sea

by exfactor



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-01-11 01:10:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12311670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exfactor/pseuds/exfactor
Summary: Clarke moves to Miller's Island in search of escape, in search of remembrance, in search of repentance.





	1. Chapter 1

_**“Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me”** _

 

It started with a cottage.  
  
At first, it only existed in her mind.

Something quaint. Something by the water. Something to aid in her escape.  
  
But then, after a few searches and a few phone calls, it fluttered into reality.  
  
She thought it was meant to be, as if someone was watching out for her, listening to her even. She’d never said it aloud, and yet – someone out there was listening.

It was her repentance come to fruition.  
  
It was just three rooms. Even that felt like one room too many. The bedroom was just big enough for a double bed and a small wood stove in the corner. When she moved in at the end of September, she draped her grandmother's quilt over the foot of the bed and woke shivering in the night to pull it up and over her body. She soon learned that the wood stove would be used at night more often than not, even in the early fall.  
  
There was no luxurious soaking tub in the bathroom, no gleaming white tiles, just a toilet that ran and a leaky faucet in the stand-up shower. While she had no plans to renovate - and certainly no plans to make a profit off of renovation - this was the only room she found wanting. She had dreams some nights of a large window looking out over the bay and bubble baths with candles.  
  
The room that sold it to her, though, was the main room of the house. She didn't need to see the bedroom or the bathroom. When she first walked into the house, she knew that she would buy it. She would sleep on a futon and relieve herself in an outhouse if that's what it took to come home to this room. She first saw the property in May, with a realtor for the county. Even in May, she could picture herself coming in from the cold, stamping her boots on the dark wood floor and lighting a fire with logs she'd chopped in her own backyard. (First, she'd have to remember her dad's lesson about starting a fire, if she could remember back fifteen or so years.) With the fire crackling, she'd turn on the radio and warm a stew on the antique stove. She'd change into cozy flannel pajamas and eat, pulling back the curtains to watch the sun finally set over the bay. She wouldn't need a TV with that view every night. As the fire dimmed to embers later in the evening, she'd pull out a book and try to stay up another hour or so, just to hear the chop of the water and the wind whistling through the ancient windows.  
  
Her mom scoffed at her, told her it that the money wasn't meant to be spent like that. Clarke didn't speak to her for nearly a week, until Raven helped her realize that her mom was probably more upset about her moving away than she was about how the money was spent. (She wasn’t even moving that far, she argued that night, at least not in comparison to when he moved away from them. But to Abby, 100 miles was an entire day off from the hospital. She wouldn’t say it aloud, but Clarke knew that was what she meant when she said she was too far.)  
  
Raven scoffed at her, too, but in her own way. She joked about Clarke becoming so lonely that she'd forget how to speak, nay forget the look and touch of another human being. Clarke assured her that the mainland wasn't so far away, and besides, the island wasn't uninhabited.  
  
In fact, between buying the house in May and moving into it in September, she'd done quite a bit of research on Miller's Island. It was an old fishing village, dating back to the 17th Century. Its proximity both to the bay and sea meant that it had been booming business for watermen until the Second World War. When the island’s sons came back from the war, they came back more worldly. Most disappeared to the mainland, leaving the family business, the family fishing vessel, and the family home to die out with their parents.

Still, some remained, and after the Second World War, the island saw an influx of Portuguese immigrants, bringing skills honed in their homeland along the way. Portuguese immigrants were met mostly with begrudging thanks, but a few were met with sabotage and violence. Clarke hadn’t noticed it on her first two trips to the Island, but on her third, she discovered a mossy memorial to the lone Portuguese death that came at the hands of this violence. She promised herself that when she moved in, she would dig into the deep and tarnished history of the place she was to call home.

Just a few days after moving in, she discovered that the Island still very much retained its connection to the history of those Portuguese immigrants, at least in part thanks to Barb’s Bar.

Barb’s, she learned, was the only regular business on the Island. Barb’s opened from eleven in the morning to seven at night and was a jack-of-all-trades type place. A small five-by-five room connected to the entrance offered a convenience store of sorts, full mostly of dried goods like cans of vegetables, jars of sauces, and pasta, along with some drinks and other odds and ends. While she’d have to go the mainland for most of her fresh foods and all of her paint supplies, Barb’s would do in a pinch. She didn’t relish the thought of two 45-minute ferry rides and a full day on the mainland once a week in exchange for those groceries, but she knew that once she got used to it, it’d all be part of the routine anyway.

The fluorescent room at Barb’s then opened up to a long, dark bar decorated with knick-knacks from watermen come and gone. There was an anchor in the center of the knotty pine bar, some fishing net hanging in the corner of the ceiling, and yellowing pictures speckled the walls.

Nearly a week in to calling Miller’s Island home, Barb’s offered Clarke her first taste of linguiça and her first rude awakening.

 

\--

 

The clock has just ticked past one and watermen slowly begin to trickle in, wrapping up a long day on the water. She hasn’t figured out exactly what time most of them go out for their day’s work, but it’s early. The well before sunrise kind of early. Which means that an eight hour day ends some time in the afternoon, and they must be to bed in the early evening. There’s not much that seems to happen on the island past seven or eight o’clock.

 

She starts on the store side, browsing through the dry goods and the lone cooler in the corner. Knowing she’d have to rely on this place at some point, she figures it’s best to know what kind of meals she’d have to rely upon.

 

There’s not much to interest her on the store side, though, and she hopes she won’t have to rely on it very often. She far prefers to cook with the fresh ingredients of the grocery store on the mainland, even if that throws a wrench into her planned routine.

 

The bar, she figures as she sets herself on a green vinyl stool, will hold more interest.

 

“Hi,” she says with a smile.

 

The woman behind the bar, a woman of maybe sixty or so, offers her a dull stare and a moment’s pause before shuffling back to other side of the bar.

 

Clarke can feel her face heat up and wonders about the protocol for this place. Back at home, while she wasn’t exactly a party girl, she knew her way around a bar. She looks up to find a chalkboard menu and an old sign for a now defunct beer.

 

“Hi,” she says again as the woman nears. She pauses again and this time Clarke pushes forward.

“Can I get a cup of the stew and a pint?” There’s really not much else that she can order. It looks like there’s a case of pre-made sandwiches in a cooler, and a few sparse bottles of liquor. Needless to say, she thinks this place may not receive much of her business.

 

The woman offers her another dull stare and shuffles into the back.

 

“Beautiful day out there, beautiful day indeed.” Two men, watermen she guesses by the look of it, enter the bar through the store. Their voices carry and sound slurred, as though they’ve started the afternoon festivities already.

 

“Days like today, even though they’re rare, make you remember why we do this, don’t they Jonny?”

 

The one leading the way is older. Clarke supposes he’s about fifty or so. There’s a weathered look about both of them, presumably from long days on the water, exposed to sun and salt water, but perhaps also from spending one too many afternoons at the bar. The younger, who she guesses must be Jonny, looks to be about her age, with a worn trucker’s cap and a three-day scruff along his chin and neck.

 

“Especially when there’s a boatload of money at the end of your day,” Jonny says.

 

“How you think the other boys did out there today?”

 

“Oh, not so good as us. No indeed.”

 

“Ma’am,” the older one says just loud enough for Clarke to hear as his eyes meet Clarke’s from the end of the bar.

 

Clarke smiles in reply. She hasn’t had much chance to interact with the watermen of the island yet. They’re gone before she rises and seem to be in bed as she takes her evening stroll. The only schedule she’s got them nailed down to is that they bring their boats in sometime in the afternoon. It affords her some great painting on the days that she’s pulled her easel out to the shore. She’s already got an oil painting of a fishing vessel coming into dock that she thinks she might gift her mom for Christmas.

 

The younger one leans over to the older one and whispers something before their bodies both shake in laughter. Clarke wants to laugh with them, thinking that it’s been several days since she’s had a good laugh. She reminds herself to call Raven soon.

 

“Barbie!” the older one yells, “Barbie, get us a couple pints.”

 

“Hold your horses and let me finish this first,” Clarke hears her yell from the back. So that was the Barb of Barb’s Bar. She wonders if just maybe there might be another employee, somebody who might be a little quicker to smile and a little easier on a newcomer.

 

Barb returns not a minute later with Clarke’s soup. Soon, there’s also three pints on the bar and one slides Clarke’s direction.

 

Linguiça, she discovers, is a spicy, smoky, garlicky pork sausage. She has to look all of that information up later, though. In the moment, she just knows that it is the perfect ingredient in the stew. She walks back her thoughts on Barb’s Bar just a little – if she can get this stew regularly, then maybe she’ll have to live with Barb’s surly demeanor.

 

She also thinks that she might need to get Barb to talk to her one of these days, if just to see she if might sell her a bit of linguiça. She knows it will complement one of her own favorite stew recipes, or work well on top of a homemade pizza. One day, maybe, she’ll be able to get her hands on the stuff. Not yet, though. She and Barb certainly don’t seem to be on speaking terms yet.

 

Three more men crash through the entrance just as she finishes her soup. The first two are past her and joining Jonny and the old man before she even notices that they have company. The last one darkens the door of the bar, the shadow of his huge frame filling the room.

 

Barb looks up and Clarke feels a little thrill at seeing her smile. If she can’t make Barb smile, she’s glad to see that someone else can.

 

“Gus, grab me that empty there, will ya?”

 

The big man, Gus, nods at Clarke and swipes her empty pint glass, ducking under the bar in one swift motion, like he’s done it a thousand times before. “Refill, ma’am?”

 

She hadn’t planned to stay for another. For one, because she isn’t sure how many more it would take before she’d be drunk. She’s been out of practice drinking for several months and this first beer has already made her feel a little woozy. And, for another, because she isn’t sure how much longer she can sit in silence with the bartender ignoring her on the one end and the two watermen whispering like a pair of schoolgirls at the other.

 

Gus is her first smile on Miller’s Island.  

 

“Sure,” she says, offering a smile in return. She can stay for another so long as she can have a pleasant human interaction attached to it.

 

“Gustus,” he says, holding his pint glass up by way of introduction. “That’s what my parents named me. Everyone round here just calls me Gus.”

 

“Clarke,” she lifts her beer to tap against Gus’s glass. He downs it in seconds and refills it quickly.

 

“So you’re the new gal, huh? Heard a lot about you. I’m sure none of it’s true,” he says with a wink, as he wipes down the bar.

 

“You’ve heard about me? I’ve only been here about a week.” Clarke knows she should have figured as much. She’d run across the same people time and time again as she settled into her daily routine. Though she was never up early enough to see the watermen off, there were the older folks who’d pass her by as she worked on her paintings by the small, rocky shore. There were the neighbors who nodded each time she waved and the one older fellow who gave her a wave in return. And then there was Barb.

 

“Small place.”

 

“I can see. How small exactly?” She’d read some in her research over the summer, but she could never nail down firm population, except that the local news was reporting a steep drop over the past decade or so.

 

“Seventy-eight. Well, now seventy-nine.”

 

“With me.”

 

“With you,” he says, offering another clink and downing another pint. “Why Miller’s, Clarke? If you don’t mind my asking. Most people are moving out, not moving in.”

 

“I just needed something different and I’ve always felt a connection to the sea.” There’s more to say - talk of adventures and lessons learned, summers on the water with her dad, morals that paired with every trip, often delivered in a warm tenor with a smile and a promise to go back out again soon. There’s more to say about death and forgiveness and honoring her father’s memory and Gus’s small kindnesses tempt her to share, but cannot not push her over the edge.

 

“Don’t go telling that to any of the boys around here,” he says in a stage whisper.  

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Liable to laugh in your face sounding just like mainlanders out for a little soul searching.” Gus scoffs a little at the word ‘mainlanders.’ She knows that in his eyes, in their eyes, that’s exactly who she is. It doesn’t matter that she’s got her own story. It doesn’t matter that she used to spend every summer with her father living by the water. It doesn’t matter that she’s in mourning. She’s a mainlander and an outsider until proven otherwise.

 

“Maybe I’d rather they laugh in my face than in the corner,” Clarke hisses, with a nod to the end of the bar.

 

“Oh them. They ain’t shit,” he says with a big belly laugh. She can’t tell if he’s serious or if he’s joking. Every time he’s been down at their end of the bar, he’s laughed along with their jokes. “But most of us aren’t.”

 

He leans against the bar and beckons Clarke closer. “Let me tell you something, Clarke. You want to make this your home, you’ll just have to accept it and move on. There’s a lot of guys who don’t like the idea of this place changing. But change is inevitable. That’s a saying right? Much as this place feels like it’s still living in the 1700s, we’ve had to change or we wouldn’t have survived. I wouldn’t be here, my family wouldn’t be here without scaring up some change. You stick around, they’ll change. Promise you that.”

 

She looks down at her beer. It’s not exactly the kind of pep talk she was hoping for, but she thinks about her father and how much he would have loved this place and she offers Gus a crooked smile.

 

“There’ve been other newcomers that couldn’t cut it out here, Clarke. But I’m thinking there’s something special about you.”

 

Before she can ask more, another rowdy group of watermen walks in and Gus offers a booming welcome.

 

“Hey there, boys.”

 

Two turn and nod, while the third pauses in the doorway and is most definitely not one of the boys. Clarke sees the hair fly out from under her hat in a messy curl before she pulls it back off her neck with a hair tie. Her flannel shirt is rolled up past her elbows, showing off strong, lean forearms. Her skin is an olive complexion. Clarke supposes it’s from working so many days out in the sun. The dim light from the bar catches her eyes and then Clarke catches her eye and she can’t look away. In that moment she doesn’t have many coherent thoughts, but when she’s back at home that night, she realizes that this is the first woman younger than sixty that she’s seen on the island, and the first female waterman she’s seen, too.

 

She doesn’t get another look before the woman has disappeared back behind the bar with Gus and then quickly into the kitchen with Barb. She wonders if this woman doubles as a bartender, too, just like Gus.

 

Sleep doesn’t come easy that night, probably as a result of drinking more than she’s used to, but maybe also because Gus’s words keep echoing through her head. She wants to make this place a home and she thinks she’s ready to accept what that means.

 

Outside of her interaction with Gus, her first few weeks on Miller’s Island aren’t altogether pleasant. Miller’s Island is small and seems to want to remain small.

  
But at this point in her life, Clarke knows that nothing will be easy.

 

That that was one of her father’s many oft-repeated lessons from their time together makes it all the more affirming that perhaps this place could truly be called home.

 

  



	2. Chapter 2

_**“And the singing of the sailors”** _

 

 

 

She usually wakes around sunset. In her past life, when she wasn’t already in the hospital or due in, if she woke up that early, she’d groan and pull a pillow over her head and be back to sleep in a few minutes.

 

It’s on purpose, here. She leaves the curtains drawn back, so that the sunrise serves as her morning alarm. It starts as a dim, pinkish hue rising from the edge of the earth, then bursts into flames of red and orange. That’s what wakes her and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

She drinks her coffee on the front porch, whether it’s sunny or rainy, hot or cold. She figures even when it’s snowing, she’ll take her coffee on the front porch, in the old rocking chair she found at her dad’s when she was packing things up. She sold most of his stuff. Most of his stuff he’d bought after he moved away from her and her mom. But she remembered that rocking chair. Her mom said it had been his favorite chair and the only way he could successfully get Clarke to sleep as an infant. She didn’t know when she packed it up at the time that it might one day be sitting on the front porch of a tiny cottage on an isolated island thousands of miles away. Packing up that chair - knowing that it needed a home - that may have started this whole grand idea.

 

These days, as she settles into her routine, she takes a walk after breakfast. It’s amazing what can wash up overnight. The narrow stone beach at the southeast end of the island is usually her destination. Each morning there’s a new layer of shells and driftwood, always something that she thinks she can put to use. That’s another one of his lessons – “there’s beauty and utility in all that surrounds us.” She can even hear his voice still saying that one. She used to scoff at those lessons but she was a teenager then and it was to be expected. They’ve stuck around nonetheless.

 

After her stroll, she heads back to the cottage for a while. Sometimes she paints, sometimes she reads, sometimes she does less quaint things like surf the internet or call her mom.

"I still don't understand why you're doing this, Clarke." It rattles through the phone just like it rattled through her brain the last time she heard it and she wants to hang up.

"It's just something I need to do, Mom." That phrase is automatic now. Her mom knows to expect it and yet she keeps pulling it out of Clarke.

"I miss you." She can hear the tinny commotion of the hospital PA in the background and knows the call will be over soon.

"I know. I miss you, too. You can always come out here, you know." That’s another one of those automatic phrases. Her mom is just one hundred miles away. It’s a two-hour drive, plus 45 minutes tacked on for the ferry. But weekdays are, of course, reserved for work, and weekends somehow never come to mind.

"I know. I'm not sure I'm ready yet."

She hasn’t heard this excuse before. She’s heard that she’s too busy. She’s heard that she’s got other plans. She’s even heard that the weather looks bad and the ferry won’t be safe. But she’s never heard her admit that she’s not ready yet. Maybe that’s why weekends never come to mind. It’s the perfect time to visit, she just can’t bring herself to do it yet. Or doesn’t want to.

"It reminds me of him," Clarke says. He moved away at the beginning of high school, but she’d visit him every summer. Her father’s place was on the water, too, even if it was on another coast entirely.

"I know. That's why I can't, yet.” They’d split at the end of middle school. There were too many arguments. Too many slammed doors. Too many times that Clarke was used as a buffer. Her mom didn’t talk about him much when he was alive and she seemed happier that way, but Clarke knows they should talk about him soon.

“Do you think you'll stay there forever?" Her mom says it like it could be the difference between whether they see each other again.

"I've been here a month and a half, Mom."

"I lost him to the sea, too."

"Don't be so dramatic."

"Not literally. But you know."

"I know. Sorry, I didn't mean to..." It’s a conversation for another time.

"Don't worry about it. Just try to find some enjoyment out there, ok? That's what he would have wanted. Not this soul-searching nonsense."

"Mom, stop."

"Ok. Sorry."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

 

Lunch comes somewhere in the late morning, before the clock strikes noon. It’s more for sustenance than enjoyment. She needs the energy just to get through some afternoon painting.

 

She first took up painting as a way to avoid him. She hated the monthly camping trips and paddling excursions and thought that if she took up a hobby she might be able to beg out of a few trips here and there. It worked for a while, until her dad suggested that they start packing up her painting supplies to make the trip, too. Once he did that, in her surlier teenage years, she dropped painting completely. Anything that pleased him, she avoided like the plague. He’d ask how her painting was going and she’d tell him that she couldn’t remember that last time she’d picked up a brush. He’d cringe and she’d get some sort of sick enjoyment out of it. It was the kind of enjoyment that kids of divorced parents get, the kind that says ‘you hurt me, so I’m going to hurt you.’ At least that seemed to be true of the kids of her and Raven.

 

She discovered one of her old paint sets on that same day that she found the rocking chair in his house. Hearing her mom tell stories about infant Clarke and her father in the rocking chair brought tears to her eyes, but seeing her old paint set stashed away in a box in his hallway closet brought her to her knees.

 

Coming to Miller’s Island has served the immediate purpose to live like her father did, and to live in a way that pays heed to his lessons. But it also has served the purpose of re-inspiring her artistry and creativity. She hadn’t thought about painting in so long, and since she’s been on the island, it’s been one of the few things that’s truly felt right.

 

So she makes sure to paint at least once a day. It’s nearly always in the afternoon and by the docks. She likes to watch the watermen come in, the birds swarming their boats and their bodies in constant motion. It makes the perfect backdrop and she doesn’t mind toting her easel a few hundred feet each day to have this as her setting.

 

Beyond an afternoon spent painting, she hasn’t exactly found a routine yet. Some days she takes another stroll and turns in for the evening. Some days she heads back over to Barb’s and has a pint or two, while keeping to herself despite the more raucous company of the place. Some days, she bakes and cooks and bakes with no extra mouths to feed.

 

And, some days, she finds a few extra mouths to feed. One of those mouths is Mr. Bob, her next door neighbor. His house is a near exact replica of her own, about twenty feet to the south of her property. On his good days, they have rousing conversations that remind Clarke just how different this place is from what she’s used to calling home. Other days, they sit in silence and eat pie. To be honest, Clarke prefers the silence over the eye-opening and gut wrenching conversations that set her back in time more than fifty years.

"Mr. Bob, can I ask you something?" Last week the sun was bright enough in the midday that they could enjoy a slice of pie on the front porch, but today they’re sitting across from one another in Mr. Bob’s living room, a fire crackling in the fireplace.

"Long as you keep bringing me these pies, I suppose I can answer your questions, blondie."

"Are there any other female watermen...ladies...waterwomen?" She’s been wanting to ask about the woman she saw at Barb’s the first time she visited. She’s been back a couple times, even talked to Gus after he’s come in from the water, but the woman hasn’t been back behind the bar with them since.

"None here on Miller's. Probably elsewhere but they don't belong out there, now do they?"

"But wait, I thought there was one. I saw one at Barb’s. At least I think she was one. Slimmer, a few inches taller than me. She went right behind the bar and into the kitchen at Barb’s the first time I was there.”

"Oh, now you're talking about Lexa Madeira."

"Is she a waterwoman?" She racks her brain to think of what other jobs might be available on the island. The kids go off to school on the mainland, leaving by the morning ferry and returning on the afternoon trip. The only commercial building on the island is Barb’s.

"Her father'd swipe that boat right out from under her and her brother Gus both if he knew they were going out together every day."

While she’s grateful to get this information, the fire in Mr. Bob’s voice reminds her of why she prefers to eat with him in silence.

"She and Gus are siblings? What are they doing with his boat?"

"Gus is a waterman. Not sure what Lexa's doing, but I can tell you she don't belong out there."

"What do they catch?"

"Not they, blondie. _Gus_. Gus is in oyster season right now. Come summer it'll be crabs. Sometimes some fishing, too, depending on what’s out there and how big it is."

"It looks like Lexa works on the boat, too, Mr. Bob.”

"You gonna feed more some more pie or you gonna keep talking this bra-burning nonsense, blondie?"

  
She wants to scream. She wants to throw his pie and sell the house and damn the island and all of her grand plans for redemption back to hell. Instead, she slices another piece of pie and looks out at the water. She'd rather have Mr. Bob's company without conversation than have no company at all. And this can't be the end of her journey here, not after just a month and a half.  


She packs up from Mr. Bob's shortly after his second slice and just after he starts dozing in his tattered armchair. Clarke slips out and quietly closes the door, leaving the rest of the pie wrapped in tin foil on his kitchen counter. She figured out a while back that his wife died, probably a year ago. She didn’t figure out because he told her, but through her presence that still lingers in the house. There are pictures and there's the wedding ring, but there's also the tidy second armchair that she's not allowed to sit on, and the fresh smell of perfume that she realizes he must spritz in the bathroom every morning. It's a kindred spirit that has her coming back, despite his harsh words and insistence on calling her blondie. She likes the silence with him. In the absence of a funeral, of a grave site, of a memorial, it feels a bit like they’re both in mourning and that feeling has her returning again and again.

  
She doesn't make the walk to Barb's every day or even every week. After her first time, she resolved that she'd stop by occasionally, just to show the locals that she would be a fixture on the island, whether they liked it or not.  


But she stops in occasionally. Most often, she pulls a few canned goods or a bottle of wine down from the shelf on the store side of Barb's business. Barb still doesn't talk to her, just rings her up and takes her money. She decides that today, after listening to Mr. Bob, she needs a drink.  


The day ends worse than most of her days so far. Which is saying something, because her days on Miller's Island haven't exactly gone as she's planned.

 

It starts with none other than Barb herself, though she’s used to that by now.

“Good afternoon,” Clarke says with a smile. ‘Kill em with kindness’ rings through the back of her head in her father’s voice. Another one of those lessons he tried to teach. She remembers that lesson repeating again and again once he’d moved out to the west coast and had to deal with some less-than-kind neighbors.

Barb looks at her for a moment and Clarke knows now that this is her cue to tell Barb what she wants. Barb’s not about to have a conversation with her, even if she’s the last person on earth, it seems.

“A pint, please.”

In seconds, there’s a frosty mug of amber ale in front of her and she relaxes into the understanding that when she’s here, she doesn’t have to perform. She can turn her brain off and sip a cold beer and that’s that.

But that’s not always that when the watermen start coming in.

Jonny and the old man from her first trip to Barb’s are always the first ones in in the afternoon. They’re always making a racket and they’re always at least a little intoxicated before they even set foot into Barb’s. They don’t work on the same boat together, but they’re as close as can be and Clarke figures they must be related in some way.

Then, there’s Gus. He’s usually in and behind the bar within an hour of Jonny and his pal, but he doesn’t always make the trip into Barb’s, as Clarke discovered on her last trip, when she was feeling like some good, decent conversation and remembered her first time talking to Gus. His words and his smile have lingered with her, and she’d been especially looking forward to talking to him that day. He didn’t show and she decided she’d rather finish the evening in the privacy of her cottage.  

The only other waterman she can put a name to is Lexa. She doesn’t know much about Lexa outside of what Mr. Bob relayed in the afternoon, albeit with his own biases loudly inserted. She hasn’t seen Lexa since her first trip to Barb’s, either.

She figures there are about fifteen or so other watermen on the island, based on her observations. She’s either seen them coming into the docks when she’s painting, or she’s seen them on Sundays after church, their one day off the water and with their families. Most are older, in their forties, fifties, and few in their sixties.

She sticks around for a second round, hoping to see Gus, and maybe even Lexa. Now that she’s got some more details from Mr. Bob, she wants to know about their catch, and, if she can pull it out of them, she wants to know why Mr. Bob won’t acknowledge that Lexa works the water. That one, she figures, will take a little more persuading, but Gus seems to have a big enough mouth.

The second pint comes and goes just like the first. Barb doesn’t say a word, just slides the refilled glass into her hands and ducks back into the kitchen to do some dinner prep.

Jonny and the old man have made their way to the corner of the bar with relative quiet, and by her third beer are joined by another watermen she doesn’t recognize. There are shots lined up on the bar and she wonders if they’re celebrating some special occasion. Maybe an especially good catch, or a birthday.

“To Miller’s Island,” the third watermen shouts.

After the clink of glasses and the winces of alcohol burning down their throats, he continues, “All these fucking mainlanders coming over here. I don’t know what’s happening to this place, boys. We’re losing people by the bushel and the only people who want to live on the island are these rich bitches with money to spare. Don’t even know what it’s like to spend a day out on the water, much less every single day of your life making a living.”

“Least this mainlander is blonde and has big tits,” Jonny interjects, raising his glass to the air and enjoying a clink from the speechmaker.

Clarke wonders if they know she’s in the bar. If she didn’t ask for a pint, she wouldn’t be sure that even Barb was aware of her presence. They don’t look in her direction, but she thinks they must know. She can’t be a regular topic of conversation. Or maybe she can. The island’s only got 78 other people to talk about.

 “I don’t want to have to go to the mainland to find my next screw,” Jonny continues. Clarke freezes.

There’s not a lot of commotion and she thinks she can feel his eyes on her, but she doesn’t want to turn to look. There’s a panic rushing through her brain and she begins to wonder if she can pack up her things tonight and leave by the morning ferry.

“That chick’s too hot to fuck you anyway, but there’s always old Lexa.”

“Lexa’s more likely to bend me over and fuck me, rather than the other way around.”

 “I think you might like that, Jonny.”

The longer the conversation goes on, the more sure she is that they don’t think she’s there, but she knows that as soon as she moves, they’ll spot her and she’s unsure of what could come next.

She continues to listen, with her eye on the kitchen, strategizing a plan.

As soon as she sees Barb round the corner and come out to take her glass, she gets up.

“You want me to move, you got it, you disgusting assholes.” She thinks that her voice is firm and direct, but it’s all over so fast that she hopes it didn’t crack in the middle.

Jonny’s the only one who still has a grin on his face, the speechmaker’s getting redder by the second, and the old man looks like he’s about to have a heart attack.

She doesn’t know why she sticks around. Maybe some small part of her is hoping for an apology, or for Barb to intervene. But, as she turns, Barb looks between the four of them with bewilderment.

Jonny chugs the rest of his beer and runs his calloused hand over his scruff. “So does that mean you’re not gonna sleep with me, beautiful?”

Barb may have said something next. Or the old man. Or maybe even the speechmaker. She sees Gus in the brightened fluorescent of the convenience store and he watches with a full turn of his body as she passes quickly by him. He may have said something, too.

The only thing she can hear is something akin to waves crashing around in a torrent inside her head.

  
  
She feels ashamed. And stupid. Tears fill her eyes and she leaves a twenty on the bar before she can let anyone see them spill over, rushing outside to the comfort of darkness and the chill of the November air.  
  
She doesn't expect, in her rush, to run right into Lexa Madeira.  
  
Literally, run right into. Had her timing been a half a second later, she would have knocked Lexa out with the force of the door. Instead, her body crashes into Lexa's and she feels strong arms and hands wrap around her waist, stopping her momentum. Clarke's eyes go wide, still full of unshed tears as she looks at Lexa, so close she can feel Lexa's heavy, surprised breath beating against her face, warming her against the chill.  
  
"Sorry," she warbles, trying to break free of Lexa's grasp. When she doesn't let go immediately, Clarke looks up into her eyes. They're green, but not like anything she's seen before. Not bright. Not verdant. Not peaceful or serene. They're swirling and dark like the clouds over the bay in the late fall, when there's a bite in the air and a chop on the water.

 

She swears Lexa says something, "You ok?" or "Alright?" Something. The more she thinks about it later, the more she thinks that she's never heard Lexa's voice. But in the moment, her eyes locked on Lexa's, the tears spring forth and she nods in response. Lexa's hands release her and she runs home.  



	3. Chapter 3

_**“And the answer from the shore!”**  _

 

 

 

She doesn’t move out.

 

At least not yet, not with Raven on the way over. She figures, if necessary, she can have Raven help her pack up and she can be mostly moved out in time for the Sunday night ferry. Whatever remains can be sold with the house. The paint set and rocking chair will go with her, of course, but they’ll be relegated to a storage unit, where she won’t have to think much about her failed attempt to make amends.

 

Her routine is broken.

 

She stays in bed until nearly noon, turning over and over and over again.

 

She refuses to get out of bed and draw the curtains despite the most brilliant sunrise she’s seen yet. (Though she only sees it when the edges of the pillow spring back from the weight of her arms, just as she’s starting to fall asleep.)

 

She dreads the conversation with Raven and she can’t even begin to think about the conversation with her mom.

 

 

 

 

Raven gets in late Friday afternoon.

 

She’s beaming as she steps off the boat, with a large, designer duffel bag.

 

“Oh my god, Clarke. This place is beautiful. Like amazing. I have the best pictures of the sunset from the ferry ride out here. I can’t believe you get to see that every day. Oh, you have the internet here, right? I need to post that picture to all my feeds.” Raven doesn’t stop for air and Clarke feels a real, genuine smile for the first time in ages. It’s comfortable and it’s natural and she’s forgotten what it means to smile without force.

 

“Come here, I missed you.” Raven’s bag slings between both their bodies as she pulls her into a hug.

 

“Hungry?”

 

“Starving. Please tell me you’ve been cooking.”

 

Clarke’s stomach finally forced her upright at noon and, like in many other times of stress, she set to baking and cooking without thinking about who she’d be feeding or food gone to waste.

 

Clarke smiles and Raven drops her bag on the ground and jumps onto Clarke’s back, her legs clamping around Clarke’s waist. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll leave twenty pounds heavier after this weekend, but I don’t even care.”

 

“I’m just glad I have another mouth to feed.” She says it with a smile, but she’s ready to talk about it, if Raven can read into the deeper message. Maybe enough of these hints and she’ll have Raven convincing her that she should move home. It’s one thing, she thinks, to move back because she’s given up, it’s another to move back because the people at home are begging her to return.

 

“I can’t believe we lived together for almost three years and I only got your homemade cooking a handful of times.”

 

“They had me so crazy busy at the hospital.”

 

“Tell me about it. I swear Dr. Campos just wants to make my life miserable.”

 

“I thought I told you I never want to hear his name again.”

 

Raven pretends to zip her lips and Clarke laughs again.

 

It feels good to have something familiar to talk about and some connection to her former life and she decides that she doesn’t need to bring up the watermen, or Barb’s, or Mr. Bob, or anything else that’s been making her second guess herself, at least not tonight. No, tonight, she’ll enjoy Raven’s company, reminisce on what she’s missing since leaving home, and relax.

 

 

 

The morning brings a surprisingly warm November sunshine that has Raven begging to take out Clarke’s canoe. To be honest, the water scares her a bit. She’s seen more rough, choppy days than calm ones, but there’s some comfort in knowing that she’ll be with Raven.

 

There was one summer that Raven came to visit her at her dad’s house. By then, she hadn’t been paddling with her dad in a few years, but as soon as Raven spotted the canoe, they were on the water every day. Her dad would always help them launch with a smile, but Clarke knew it pained him that she wouldn’t do the same when it was just the two of them. Years later, of course she regrets so much about those summers and her relationship with him, but at the time, Clarke didn’t care. In fact, her summer adventures with Raven had the exact effect on him that she was hoping for. Two kids of divorced parents doing whatever it took to remind their families that they were hurt, too.

 

In her memories of canoeing with Raven, Clarke does remember her to be a steady, strong paddling partner. When the boat felt wobbly and her arms felt noodly, Raven wordlessly picked up Clarke’s slack. Most of all, though, Raven always had a great attitude.

 

The wind and current and excitement take them out farther than she anticipates and the paddle home is strenuous. They’re nearly to shore when Raven’s paddle spears into the soft bottom and sends the boat jostling from side to side. Raven starts to get to her feet and as soon as Clarke turns and catches her devilish smile, she knows Raven’s intentions. No one but Raven would toss her paddle, rock the boat, and then stand. No one but Raven would want to end a canoe trip with a dip in the November bay.

 

The water chills her bones and soaks through her bottoms and her top, despite just a two foot depth. She sputters and tries to stand and loses her balance and falls into the water again, laughing and tasting salt.

 

“Better get out soon, before the lifeguard rescues us,” Raven says from her knees with a chuckle as she points to the shore.

 

“Hey, stud,” she yells thirty feet toward the shore, “you gonna help us out or just stare?”

 

Lexa’s got a deer in headlights look and Clarke laughs even harder at the thought of Raven’s edge and exuberance confronting Lexa, and she certainly can’t picture Lexa racing into two feet of water to pull Raven to shore. She doesn’t know Lexa really at all, but she can’t imagine that she and Raven are cut from the same cloth. If anyone’s in direct contrast with Miller’s Island, it’s Raven, not Clarke.

 

Clarke sees Gus walking away from the rocky beach, while Lexa stands at water’s edge looking out at them. Clarke starts to stand again and falls again and this time she’s pretty sure that Lexa’s laughing, too. At least that’s what she thinks she sees, but she’s got double vision with the salty water dripping from her forehead and into her eyes.

 

By the time they make it back to the shore, Lexa’s gone and Clarke’s teeth tremble with the cold.

 

When they get back to the cottage, they’re too cold to do anything other than strip off their clothes, wrap themselves in warm blankets and Clarke’s grandmother’s quilts, and crank the wood stove in her bedroom.

 

Once Clarke can feel her toes again, she looks over at Raven blue lips and still-chattering teeth and shakes the bed in a fit of laughter.

 

“If we freeze to death on this little island, it’s all your fault.”

 

“I think we can blame it on your lifeguard, Clarke,” she says through a shiver. “You didn’t tell me about her.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Oh please,” Raven says. “You know, your lifeguard.”

 

“My lifeguard?”

 

“The chick on the beach. She was totally giving you eyes.”

 

It takes her a minute to remember the beach. There was so much water and sputtering and falling down and standing back up only to fall back down again. “Lexa? No way. She was watching the two of us be complete idiots.”

 

“Well, she was mainly watching you be a complete idiot, then. Come on, spill.”

 

“What’s there to tell?”

 

“She’s hot, for one.” Raven’s got this googly eyes thing she’s done for as long as Clarke’s known her, which feels like forever. Her eyes roll around in her head and she sing-songs an “ooooh” until Clarke can make her stop.

 

“We had a weird thing the other night.”

 

“A thing?” Raven asks, with a lascivious look. “Tell me more.”

 

“You must have missed the ‘weird’ part of that sentence,” Clarke says, deadpan. “We had a weird thing. I got upset and left in a rush and I ran right into her, right directly into her arms. Her hands grabbed at my sides and then her arms wrapped around my waist and she looked at me for so long. She didn’t say a thing, just looked at me. It was the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way from someone just looking at me.”

 

“I have several questions, but let’s work out this feeling first. Like, horny, right?”

 

“Lord, Raven. No. Like she knew me. Or like she knew what I was thinking. I don’t know. I’ve had a hard time adjusting and things have been tough here, but when she looked at me that feeling that’s been lingering just kind of disappeared. Doesn’t make sense, right?”

 

If she’s honest with herself, she’s recalled the occasion a few times, thinking back over the order of events, thinking back about whether Lexa might have heard what she’d said in the bar, or even what the watermen said. She thinks back, too, over whether Lexa’s hands really did feel that strong, whether her eyes really did connect with Clarke’s, whether Clarke really did feel any instantaneous connection with a woman she barely knows.

 

“Ugh, are we going to start talking about soulmates or super powers or both? Do you think this island is like something out of a comic book – like people come to this island and they get special powers? When are yours gonna come in?”

 

Clarke laughs and is glad that she didn’t start the weekend by telling Raven she wanted to move. She’s sure there wouldn’t have been this much laughter.

 

“You’re awful. You’ve never felt that way with someone, like they just get you?”

 

“Just the pizza delivery guy. Is it supposed to happen with other people?”

 

They erupt in more laughter and Clarke can feel happy tears running down her cheeks.

 

 “Tell me about that night, before her,” Raven says, suddenly serious. “What got you upset?”

 

It’s a moment Clarke’s been waiting for this weekend. She’s dropped a few hints here and there and whether Raven’s picked up on them all or just this one, she’s finally bit on this one.

 

“I’ve just had a hard time adjusting.”

 

Raven turns to her. “We have all dealt with that feeling, Clarke. It doesn’t usually lead us to get upset and leave somewhere in a rush.”

 

Clarke shakes her head and she can feel more tears prickle her eyes.

 

“I just feel like I don’t belong.” Her voice feels like it’s a few words away from cracking and she bites back a sob.

 

“And someone said something to you.”

 

A few deep breaths have the sobs fading and the tears subsiding. Raven reaches out to hold her hand.

 

“No,” she whispers, not looking directly at Raven because then she’d start crying again. “Well, yes and no.”

 

“Let’s start with the yes part of that statement.”

 

“Fine, because you’re going to drag it out of me no matter what, but you have to promise me you won’t do anything.”

 

“What happened, Clarke?” Her face hasn’t changed, and her hand still loosely grips Clarke’s, running a thumb over the back of Clarke’s hand, but she can hear the barest hint of anger blossoming in Raven’s voice.

 

“Just a guy at the local bar. He said a few nasty things to me and some people in the bar laughed.”

 

Raven sits up and swings her legs out of bed, her body still wrapped in blankets. “Where’s this bar?”

 

“Raven, you said you wouldn’t do anything.”

 

“I didn’t say that at all,” she says, getting to her feet. “Where’s this bar? You better tell me before I start knocking on doors. This place isn’t that big.”

 

Clarke sits up, too, ready to bar the door if necessary. “Stop. Let’s just relax and have a drink, have a nice dinner. If we’re feeling good afterwards and you promise not to do anything, then maybe I’ll take you out to this bar.”

 

“Deal.”

 

Clarke knows she’s taking a gamble. She knows that if they make it to Barb’s, Raven is probably going to break her promise. But, she also knows that Raven loves to drink and eat Clarke’s home cooking, so if they even make it out of the cottage, Barb’s may be just about closed. It’s a risk she’s willing to take.

 

 

 

They arrive at 6:15.

 

Because of course they do. Of course, tonight is the first night in the history of ever that Raven doesn’t want seconds of Clarke’s chicken cacciatore. Of course, tonight is the night that Raven decides to take a couple shots with dinner, rather than relax with a bottle of wine. (Who does that?) Of course, tonight is the night that she has to confront all of the drama that’s happened at Barb’s thus far. Just when she was starting to wrap her head around the idea that ignoring everything might just be for the best.

 

Barb’s is packed. Clarke’s never seen it so busy. Barb scrambles between the bar and the kitchen and the smattering of tables against the knotty pine wall. Maybe it’s because it’s the weekend, or because it’s getting colder out, or maybe it’s because people on the island just love to get themselves mixed up in other people’s business, Clarke thinks. She figures the island’s gossips have already talked themselves hoarse about Jonny’s jokes and Clarke’s big blowup.

 

She doesn’t see Gus or Lexa, but she knows that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not there. Well, Lexa, at least. Gus can be pretty hard to miss.

 

Jonny’s there, though, along with his old waterman buddy and the speechmaker from the other night. Clarke doesn’t see him, but she sees a crowd around his area and she can hear his voice loudest of them all.

 

She almost thinks that her strategy works. Raven’s all smiles and buying her a drink and a shot and a drink and Clarke thinks she’s going to have a rough ferry ride home tomorrow, but at least they’ll both have some fun tonight.

 

She almost thinks it works until she comes back from the bathroom. She can see it happening from across the room and she tries the delicate balance of pretending like nothing’s happening while quickly moving through the crowd to pull Raven away from the crowd.

 

 “Which one of you is Jonny?” she hears. It’s got to be near a yell because she’s more than halfway across the bar, though moving as fast as possible in Raven’s direction.

 

“That’s him over there.”

 

“The one with the black eye?” Raven’s got her eye on where Jonny usually stands, even further from Clarke, past even more people.

 

“He’s the one.”

 

“Where’d he get that shiner from?”

 

“Not my business to tell, ma’am.”

 

It feels like slow motion, but she finally makes it to Raven’s side and delicately puts her hand on Raven’s shoulder.

 

Raven whips around and Clarke knows to be ready to duck. While she hasn’t caught Raven’s fist with her face yet, she’s come close. “Raven, what are you doing?”

 

“I’m taking care of your problem, Clarke. That motherfucker over there already has a black eye, so I think someone else has helped you out, too. Now I’m about to deal with these idiots.” Her voice gradually rises until the bar has quieted. Everyone at the bar is looking at them. Barb is just standing in the doorway between the bar and the kitchen.

 

“Raven, please,” Clarke says, grabbing at her arm and pulling her back.

 

“Look, you assholes. Clarke is a part of this place now. This is her home. And I’ll be damned if you’re gonna treat my best friend like an outsider.”

 

“Raven, stop.”

 

A couple of men laugh and elbow one another, looking between the red of Raven’s rage and Clarke’s embarrassment. In the moment, it feels like everyone’s staring and pointing.

 

The bar is still mostly quiet when she hears another voice. “Jonny, get out.”

 

Barb’s walked up to stand near Jonny. Her teeth are clenched and her finger’s shaking as she points toward the door.

 

Jonny’s eyes go wide. “I didn’t do nothing this time, Barb. I swear on God above.”

 

“Don’t matter. I’m tired of you. I’m tired of you being wrapped up in all the trouble that comes to this place and I’m tired of seeing your ugly face.”

 

It should feel like a victory. Jonny, her tormentor, kicked out of the bar. The watermen surrounding him shocked and defeated.

 

Instead, Clarke just feels more embarrassment, as they all now look her way, waiting for her reaction.

 

 “I’m so sorry, Barb,” Clarke says, grabbing onto Raven’s hand. “We’re leaving now.”

 

“Stay if you want,” she says, wiping down the bar and walking back toward the kitchen. “He’s gone now and won’t be back any time soon.”

 

Clarke sees a pair of familiar faces in the convenience store side of Barb’s as she leaves. Gus has a huge grin on his face and holds his hand up to high-five Clarke. Raven, instead, gives him an exuberant slap and he yells, “Right on!”

 

Lexa’s shirking in the corner, pretending to pick out a six-pack from the beverage case. She turns and catches Clarke’s eyes and Clarke can see that one half of Lexa’s face is swollen and discolored, but she doesn’t get to study it nor ask any questions. Raven’s hustling her out the door in excitement.

 

“Kicked out, Clarke! I don’t think he’s coming back to Barb’s Bar any time soon!” She screams and gives a shout and Clarke can’t help but get caught up in Raven’s enthusiasm. They race each other home and busy themselves dancing to pop music and eating leftovers and telling secrets, just like they did when they were kids.

 

 

 

She starts the weekend ready to move, but a couple days with Raven, a kind word from Barb, and that swollen black eye on Jonny’s face make her reconsider.

 

She sets out a new plan for the next day, one that she hopes will endear her to the people who can help her make Miller’s Island her home.


	4. Chapter 4

_**“the sailing sea-bird slowly poised upon the mast to hear”** _

 

 

  
Her new plan starts with a new routine.

 

She still wakes with the sun, still welcoming the bounty of the sunrise with curtains pulled back and morning shadows shrouding her face.

 

Her next stop is the docks, with her easel. The watermen have already gone out. The water is calm and birds swarm, looking for remnants of yesterday’s catch. She skips coffee and the rocking chair for this, and it feels right, so far. She’s always been a busy person, usually because of school and the hospital, but she considers that maybe it wasn’t so much the lifestyle that made her unhappy and more just the job. She needs tasks, not idle recreation. She sets a goal to finish the painting of the birds swarming by the docks within a week. Considering she hasn’t fully finished a painting yet, it’s an ambitious one.

 

Around lunch, after she feels like she’s had a productive start to the day, she heads back to the cottage to cook. First is lunch. It’s simple – just a hunk of cheese and some bread and a salad she throws together with a few leftovers. She doesn’t want to feel too full for what’s to come in the afternoon and evening.

 

Then, she sets to baking. She knows this won’t be a part of the daily routine, but more likely the weekly routine. She also knows that this new routine will require her weekly trips to the mainland to be a bit more involved, and require a bit more grunt work in transporting her loads of groceries home.  If she’s going to be a homebody, she wants to eat well. And if people enjoy her food, then she wants to feed others, too.

 

For the afternoon, she sets to work on a couple of pies, and some pastries that she can grab for a breakfast on the go, or drop off to Mr. Bob or some of the other older folks who don’t go out on the water every morning.

 

While she still feels a little leery of Mr. Bob, she knows that he enjoys her company and her pies. And she still can’t get past the specific feeling of grief and mourning that overcomes her when she’s in his house. She thinks it shouldn’t beckon to her, but it does, and she doesn’t deny it.

 

She’s not sure what to do about Barb’s. She knows that, at least for this afternoon, she needs to make an appearance. After this afternoon, she figures she’ll play it by ear. Barb seemed – if she dare says it – sort of kind in her last interaction with Clarke and Raven. If she can’t spend more of her time at Barb’s, she considers using the afternoons and evenings to look into finding or forming some social clubs, maybe a book group, or a painting club, or a women’s group. It might be a brazen act, but she is resolved to continue her work toward making this place a home, albeit with some different strategies than before.

 

When she enters Barb’s, it’s eerily quiet. Maybe it’s because it’s Monday, or perhaps it’s because of the drama from the evening before. Barb is restocking some of the shelves under the fluorescent lights of the convenience store when Clarke walks in.

 

“Hi, Barb,” she starts, working through the script she’d been playing through her mind all morning. “Look, I know we haven’t really gotten off to a good start, and my friend last night may have ruined any chance I have of making any friends on this island, but I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble last night. I know there’s a way to go about doing things here, and that’s not it…”

 

She’s about to take a breath and continue, when Barb puts her hand on Clarke’s arm.

 

“He got what was coming to him ten times over the last couple days, hon. A shiner, a talking to, and the fury of the island’s women, plus your city slicker friend. I’m just sorry you had to deal with him in the first place. Sometimes it takes a strong woman and a fresh perspective to realize what’s wrong with the world.”

 

Clarke’s never heard Barb talk so much. Not to the watermen, not to Gus, and certainly not to her. Barb leads Clarke to the bar and walks around the other side. As she feels a blush creep up her face, Barb slams a pint on the bar.

 

“You’ve earned an afternoon’s worth of drinks on me, hon.”

 

“Oh, no, I don’t deserve that.”

 

“Sure you do, now don’t argue with me.”

 

Clarke knows better than that and pulls a stool up to the bar. Barb disappears into the kitchen. When she returns, Clarke pushes a tin foil covered pie closer to Barb’s side of the bar. “I made you this, in apology. I hope we can start all over, even if those are the last words you say to me for another long while.”

 

“I think you’ve earned your place here now,” Barb says, as she peels back the foil and takes a deep whiff. “Cherry?”

 

Clarke nods, “Chocolate cherry, actually. With a cherry preserve made from cherries picked by yours truly.”

 

“You don’t say. Shall we try a taste right now?”

 

As if on cue, a pair of shadows darken the door.  
  
"Look at these two Young Salts,” she says, looking into the doorway. “Reeking like shellfish. Go wash up."

  
"Aye, Captain," Gus says with a salute.

  
Lexa sidles closer and closer to the bar, eyes on just one thing.

  
"That new on the menu?" Her voice is deeper and quieter than Clarke realized. Maybe she and Lexa haven’t ever talked, after all. She could have sworn that one night, when they’d first run into each other, with Lexa’s arms wrapped around her waist, that she said something, asked her if she was ok, or something. She definitely nodded and said yes in return.

  
"Oh, look who speaks," Barb says, with a glare at Lexa.

 

Barb works Clarke’s pie with reverence, each piece equal, each slice of the cutter wiped between cuts.

  
"C'mon, Barb, you know Lexa will say or do anything for some of your pie," Gus booms.

  
"Well this ain't my pie. Go on and wash up."

  
They drop a bag and what looks like some mail at the end of the bar and both head toward the back room.

  
"Those two," Barb says, flipping through the mail before putting it by the till. "That's more words out of her mouth than I've heard in months. Well, aside from 'gimme another' when she's more than halfway to a cup too much."

  
"A cup too much?"

  
"Drunk, dear," she says. She's back at the end of the bar and pulling what look to be groceries out of the bag that Gus set down. "These watermen, I tell ya. Some days I'm not sure if this bar is doing them good or doing them bad."

  
"What do you mean?"

  
"You sure you went off to fancy college?"

  
"Sorry, I just...I think," Clarke can feel her face heating up and realizes that her own "cup too much" perhaps has runneth over. There's a pleasant buzz in her head, but with just one beer down, maybe it’s more to do with the new plan coming to fruition. Winning Barb’s affection was first on her list.

  
"Naw, it's alright, dear. Here, c'mon, what else can I get ya? Another beer?” She doesn’t even wait for Clarke to answer, just refills and slides it back in her direction. “Looks like Gus and Lexa got me the stuff for a dinner you wouldn't believe."

  
"Oh no, I’m not that hungry. It's ok."

  
"Well no it ain't ok. You ain't about to tie one on in my bar and then skip on out of here without a hearty meal. You sit still and wait, get Gus to give you as many beers as you want, and soon enough we’ll all be eating good.” Gus and Lexa reappear behind the bar. Lexa steps closer to look at the pie, leaning over and touching the tin to feel its warmth. Both Barb and Gus watch her and laugh.

 

“You mind if these two dopes have a slice of your pie?" Barb asks.

  
"Of course not."

  
"Way Lexa was ogling, she might want all of your cherry pie." Barb winks and places a piece of pie up on the bar.

  
As Barb disappears, Gus slides into her place behind the bar, slinging two frosty mugs for himself and Lexa and tossing two forks on the bar.

  
“You made a big stink the other night with your friend.” Gus says. Clarke has to look up to see if he’s serious or if it’s a joke. Most definitely a joke.

  
Clarke shakes her head and heaves a sigh and Gus laughs.

  
"You met my sister, Lexa, right? She doesn’t always remember the manners our mother taught us." Clarke doesn’t say anything, but recollects easily the look from Lexa’s eyes, their swirling color, and the grip of her hands and the warmth of her skin.

  
Clarke looks at her leaned over the bar. Half the slice of pie is already gone. Lexa nods. Not in her direction, but more at the pie.

  
"Is it ok?" Clarke asks, almost more as a chance just to take a closer look. Lexa's sharp jaw moves in quick rhythm with the way she wolfs down each bite. Her eyelashes are long, in profile with her face. Clarke watches them flutter closed as she takes another bite. She wants another look at her eyes and another look at the bruised side of her face.

  
"Let me try," Gus booms, swiping the second fork from the bar. Just as the fork dives in for a hearty bite, the plate flies off the bar and Lexa is turned around, huddling over the plate with her back to Gus.

  
"Get your own," she hears Lexa mumble, pie crumbs spilling to her lap.

  
"This kid acts like she's never eaten before," Gus says with a big belly laugh. He turns to the back counter and serves himself a generous slice. Cherry and chocolate filling covers his thumb and he sucks it into his mouth with a hum. "This your pie?"

  
"Depends. Is it good?"

  
Gus looks at her. Just looks. Then, slowly scoops a bite into his wide mouth. He chews slowly. Slower than Clarke thinks anyone's ever chewed. He looks like he's about to say something when he goes in for another bite. Another slow chew.

  
"Amazing," she hears from beside her. Lexa's spun back around and has come back to earth and is slugging down her beer. "Gimme another, Gus."

  
"Which?" He asks, looking between the nearly empty mug still touching Lexa's lips and the empty plate. It looks like there's a streak where Lexa scooped up some filling with one of her fingers. Clarke, in her haze, is sad she missed it.

  
"Both," she says to him. Then, to her, "You made this?"

  
Clarke turns to her. She's seen Lexa before, of course, but this is different. Her eyes are wide and as she fully turns, she sees the dark blues and purples of a black eye. The colors of Lexa’s eyes are even more mesmerizing when juxtaposed with the bruising on her skin.

  
"Did that happen out on the water?" Clarke asks, as Gus's attention is pulled by a pair of watermen at the end of the bar.

  
Lexa stares at her for a moment and Clarke has to look away from her eyes, down to her jaw, to her chest, exposed from unbuttoning her flannel work shirt, her long legs in faded tan workpants. Clarke catches herself and looks back up, chancing a glance at Lexa's eyes, again.

  
"This?" she asks, turning further toward Clarke so that she has a clearer view of the swelling and bright purple and blue marks around her eye.

  
"Yes. How did that happen?"

  
"Lexa's a troublemaker," Gus chimes with a chuckle in as he makes his way back down toward them. “You know what they say about the youngest sibling, right?”

  
"Fuck you, Gus,” Lexa spits back. Clarke wonders what their childhood might have been like if their relationship is this hostile and playful now. “You know he was asking for it."

  
"And you knew he'd hit you right back."

  
"I'd do it again," Lexa says, her second piece of pie now half gone.

  
"Then you'll have two black eyes. Be out of commission for a week instead of a day."

  
"Still helped you enough out there today. Besides, you don't even know what happened."

  
"I know enough to know it wasn't your fight."

  
"You can't just insult a good, decent woman and get away with it."

  
Lexa looks like she's been caught and Gus scampers off to the end of the bar looking every bit the conniving big brother, like he knows exactly what he just did. Clarke's caught looking between him talking to the guys at the end of the bar and looking back at Lexa, who's now even more interested in her pint glass.

  
"Wait, were you the one that gave Jonny that black eye?”

 

Clarke looks back at Gus and he winks at her, his plan coming fully to fruition now. When she turns back to Lexa, she sees her retreat off to the washroom.

 

She sits alone for five, then ten, then fifteen minutes, sipping her beer and sneaking bites from Gus’s slice of pie in front of her. The bar’s started to fill in since Gus and Lexa arrived, but still no Jonny, nor his two friends. If they fear Barb as much as she does, they’ll never be back.

 

Lexa reappears on her barstool next to Clarke without a word. She busies herself by taking smaller and smaller bites from the pie, as Clarke watches. She wants to say something to Lexa, but she also quite enjoys Lexa’s attempts to avoid conversation.

 

Clarke breaks the silence because she always does. Her dad’s most famous punishment was the silent treatment. He’d direct Clarke to think about what she’d done and that he’d talk to her when she was ready to talk about it. She’d do everything in her power to talk about anything else. But she’d inherited her stubbornness from his side and he’d always outlast her tricks, waiting in silence, with Clarke fraught at the idea that she’d lost one of her favorite conversation partners.

 

“Are you going to answer my question?” She asks, turning her body fully toward Lexa.

 

Lexa doesn’t turn again and Clarke can no longer see the evidence of her fight. She’s nearly 100% sure she knows the answer, what with Gus’s prodding and Lexa’s responses to him, but she wants to hear it from Lexa. She wants to see the emotion in her eyes when she turns to Clarke and says that she fought for her. She thinks it might look something like affection. She hopes.

 

Except that Lexa doesn’t respond. There’s no head nod, no hum, nothing. Just smaller and smaller bites, more and more interest in her dwindling piece of pie.

 

Clarke tries another tactic. “How was the water today?”

 

“Cold. Nothing like the weather this weekend.” She scoops the last bite of pie into her mouth and Clarke can see from her profile view that she closes her eyes on the last bite. She thinks she may even hear a hum.

 

“It was pretty nice this weekend. I’m glad Raven and I got to go out on the water. Was that you we saw on the beach when we were coming in?”

 

“Seemed a little cold to go swimming.”

 

Clarke stares at her for a moment and Lexa starts to let a grin creep onto her face. Clarke starts to say something else, something exasperated about Raven’s mischievousness and not swimming on purpose, but then Lexa is smiling at her and she has to catch her breath.

 

“You didn’t see Raven flip us?”

 

Before she can say any more, Barb is coming through the kitchen door with a tray of bowls. Gus nearly jogs the length of the bar to lean over the bowls.

 

She sees Lexa slip over to the other side of the bar. “Go on and sit down,” she says to Barb. “You three eat and I’ll take care of the boys,” she says, looking down to the watermen sitting at the end of the bar.

 

“Sit back down, Lexa,” Barb commands. “They can live without a pint for fifteen minutes while we have a family meal.”

 

Before she knows it, Lexa’s scowling back at Clarke’s side and Barb and Gus have pulled up a pair of stools on the other side of the bar. A bowl of steaming hot chicken and dumplings warms Clarke’s face.

 

No one talks. The only sounds they hear are the clinking of spoons against the bowl, and the dull murmur of the watermen at the end of the bar.

 

As Barb stands and cleans her space at the bar, she leans over to Lexa. It’s quiet, but loud enough so that Clarke can hear. “No more picking fights in my bar, Lexa, you hear me?”

 

“You know he started it.”

 

“And you finished it. He’s been asking for it. But no more, hear?”

 

“Yes’m.”

 

Before Barb can disappear back to the kitchen, Clarke stops her.

 

“Barb, do you have an ice pack or something frozen back there? Lexa should really put something on that to reduce the swelling.”

 

Lexa looks over at her and then away, shaking her head.

 

“Look at me again,” Clarke says gently.

 

Lexa doesn’t move and Clarke touches her chin just barely, until Lexa is looking her in the eye.

Her breath catches and she forgets for a moment that she should be looking at the contusion near her eyelid. She takes a gulp and tries to recall information so easily recalled just a year ago.

 

“Some fluids causing the swelling. Discoloration is a little worrisome, but may be ok. You having headaches or any problems with your vision?”

 

“Are you a doctor?” Lexa asks.

 

“Nearly.”

 

“A doctor on the island,” Barb just about shouts. She gives a wide-eyed look at Gus, who mirrors her expression. “We’d all – but especially us older folks – would love to save some time getting on and off of that ferry to go see a doc.”

  
“I’m afraid I’m not a doctor. ‘Nearly’ meaning I finished two of my five years of training.”

 

“What happened?” Gus asks, as Barb leans in.

 

“Don’t matter,” Lexa says quickly, glaring between Barb and Gus. Her eyes flash with anger and Clarke’s breath catches.

 

Until this point, Lexa’s been the runt, always overruled, but this time, Lexa’s word is final. Barb shuffles to the back with their dishes and Gus goes to tend the other end of the bar.

 

“Don’t know how to leave something be sometimes.” Lexa says.

 

“It’s ok.”

 

“It’s not ok yet. Let them earn it.”

 

Clarke nods because Lexa’s right. She’s been on Barb’s good side for all of four hours. It sounds like one of her father’s lessons and she won’t forget what Lexa’s said to her any time soon.


	5. Chapter 5

_**“For the secret of the sea”** _

 

 

 

  
There’s a note on her doorstep the next morning. It’s early, as usual, and when she sees the sign-off she realizes it must have come in earlier than early.

_Please join us for dinner tonight._

_Gus, Lexa, and Barb_

_Bring pie. – L_

The house is twice the size of her cottage.

 

There’s a large wrap-around porch, with several pairs of rubber boots, and all varieties of buckets and tubs drying out. No chairs, no canoes or kayaks, no fishing rods.

 

Gus greets her at the door, his body so big in the frame that she can’t see inside.

 

“Howdy,” he booms, as he lets Clarke past, “glad our note didn’t blow away in the wind this morning.”

 

“Well whoever put it there secured it quite nicely. I should probably give you guys my cell number, though, for next time.” The floors are wood and so is the paneling inside. There are lacy curtains, a touch she can’t imagine is Lexa’s, and fading pictures hanging all over the walls.

 

“We like to do things round here the old fashioned way sometimes, hon,” Barb’s voice echoes from the kitchen. Gus leads her in the direction of Barb’s voice.

 

She studies the pictures as they walk past a large dining room table and a nook with an armchair. It looks like Gus has towered over his family since the time he could grow chest hair and Lexa’s all knobby knees and tomboy backwards caps. There’s another girl who appears to be older than Lexa and Gus in the family pictures, probably a sister. Clarke thinks to ask about her later.

 

Before she can get to the kitchen, Barb’s out to greet her.

 

“Sit, sit. No guests in the kitchen, Gustus. I told you that,” she scolds, “not yet, at least.”

 

“Who can remember all these rules,” Gus says, as he plops into the worn armchair. There’s an old radio that he picks up from the table beside the chair as he starts to fiddle with the knobs.

 

Barb’s got a tray of crackers and cheese. It looks like she’s found something fancier than Ritz crackers from somewhere on the mainland and there’s an untouched block of cheddar next to the row of crackers.

 

When she sets the tray on the table, she sees Clarke’s pie.

 

“You’re gonna have to stop spoiling us with these pies, Clarke.”

 

“It’s my pleasure, really. And I can’t say no when someone asks me to make one special.”

 

No sooner are the words out of her mouth than she hears the front door jar open and a cold gust of wind screams in.

 

Lexa can’t even pull off her boots and toss them on the front porch before Barb’s questioning her. “Lexa, you told her to make a pie? I should have never let you deliver that note this morning.”

 

Gustus gives a hearty laugh in the background as Lexa swings by the table to take a handful of crackers and cheese.

 

“You two act like we’ve never had company before,” Barb says with a huff, before heading back to the kitchen.

 

With Gus busy with his radio and Lexa now at the fireplace arranging logs and kindling, Clarke grabs a cracker and cheese and stands to take a closer look at the fading pictures along the walls.

 

Their parents are a study in contrasts. It’s in these pictures that she starts to question Barb’s relationship to Lexa and Gus. They’ve never called her Mom, but Clarke can see some resemblance. In the pictures, she can’t quite tell if it’s her or not. The women’s fair-skinned, with curly hair, and short, like Barb. But she also smiles far less frequently – which is really saying something – and she looks to have grayish eyes, much more like Lexa’s. Her father is tall, though not quite so tall as Gus. His skin is darker, though Clarke figures it’s from his days out in the sun, working the water. He glows in every picture with his family and glares in every picture without, except a more recent, less faded one that Clarke stumbles across tucked away in the corner. He’s sitting, looking into the distance, perhaps at something off camera. Their mother, Gus, and the other sister (she thinks) stand around him. Lexa’s nowhere in frame. Perhaps behind the camera?

 

She can only get away with sneaking looks at the pictures for so long before she sees Lexa watching her. It prickles the skin on her arms and she turns to explain. “Sorry, I was just curious about your family.”

 

“Go on,” Lexa says. The fire now roaring, she comes to stand just behind Clarke, nodding toward the rest of the pictures.

 

“Is this your sister?” Clarke says, quiet enough just for Lexa, pointing to the older girl in the picture.

 

Lexa looks at the picture for a moment, then looks away at a picture from several years before.

 

“Anya,” Clarke can hear Gus boom from the armchair. Not quiet enough just for the two of them after all.

 

“And this, your mom?” She asks, a little louder, for Gus’s benefit. Gus has turned the radio down to listen.

 

He sets the radio back on the side table and stands, then eyes the picture that she’s looking at. “That’s her. Pops is in the chair.”

 

“Where are you?” Clarke says, turning to Lexa.

 

Before Lexa can answer, Barb is calling them into the kitchen. The table is simply decorated, just a checkered table cloth and a hand-decorated napkin holder that looks like something Lexa or Gus may have made in grade school.

 

“Clarke, if you don’t mind, we always say a prayer before we eat here.” Barb reaches her hand to Clarke and Clarke sees Gus and Lexa joining hands. She clasps Barb’s hand in one and feels Lexa’s hand in the other. Lexa’s hand is a study in contrasts. Soft, yet calloused. Strong, yet delicate. She wants to look down at Lexa’s hand, turn it over, read her past and present in her palm.

 

“Dear God,” Gus starts. Clarke thinks it may be the first time she’s heard Gus take a serious tone. “be good to us; the sea is so wide, and our boat is so small.”

 

She’s never been one for prayer, but this hits the perfect note. She closes her eyes and nods.

 

Lexa and Barb join with a chorus of “Amen.”

 

This family meal starts much like their last one at Barb’s, with near silence, bar the clinking of silverware. Without the ambient noise of the bar, it’s a little uncomfortable.

 

Gus looks up at Clarke as she slices a potato. “What do you think of the cozido, Clarke? Ever had anything like it before?”

 

“It’s delicious. Cozida, it’s called?”

 

“O,” Gus says, exaggerating the sound, “cozido. It’s Portuguese. One of our father’s favorite recipes. He took our mom home to Portugal to learn how to make it.”

 

“Least that’s what he says,” Barb says between bites. “I have my doubts about nearly everything that man says, sometimes.” Lexa, to her side, continues eating in silence, not even considering looking up to join the conversation.

 

“Lexa, you like this dish, too?”

 

“S’ok,” she says into her plate.

 

"This one seems to have inherited the Miller family's gift of gab,” Barb says, with a thumb in Gus’s direction, “but this one's all Madeira. I swear that man did you rotten, Lexa. Sweet from the cradle to graduation and sour from graduation to the grave."

  
"Don't say that." It comes out as an angry almost growl and Clarke feels her eyes go wide and her head whip over to figure out whether Lexa's serious.

  
"Come on, Lex."

  
Lexa stares across the table at Gus for a moment, then gives another glare at Barb before leaving her plate half-finished and walking into the other room. Clarke hears the embers of the fire stirring and what sounds like another log going on.

 

Clarke looks between Barb and Gus, who are back to clinking silverware against their plates. They seem less than concerned that Lexa’s no longer at the dinner table.

  
Clarke forges ahead. "So wait, you two are Millers? Like Miller's Island Millers?"

  
"We all are. Barb is mom's sister, my aunt.”

 

“Of the famed Miller Girls," Barb says with a smile. It makes sense now. That woman in the pictures looks like Barb because it’s her sister.

  
"Famous where?" Gus says with a chuckle.

  
"Well, I guess just Miller's Island. We're the only descendants of the original Millers that are still on the island," she says. “Daddy's girls, even if we couldn't carry the name any further."

  
"Wow, a whole island named after your family.”

 

“On the one side.”

 

Clarke hears footsteps coming closer and Lexa reappears at the table, soon with a fork back in her hand. Gus and Barb don’t even seem to have noticed her going or coming.

 

“And Portuguese on the other.”

 

“Yep,” Gus says with a full mouth. “Dad’s Portuguese. Came with his family when he was a little boy and was out working the water almost as soon as he was here.”

 

“That’s amazing,” Clarke says between bites. She catches another glance at a faded picture and tries to imagine that life – a young immigrant family speaking little English and moving to a place as isolated and unwelcoming as Miller’s Island. Maybe it was different back then, but that Portuguese memorial and her own experience thus far tells her otherwise.

 

As the conversation veers toward a more serious tone, silence dulls the room. Lexa finishes her plate and stands to get more. She doesn’t ask when she brings the pot to the table to ladle more into everyone’s bowl. Clarke’s barely finished just half as she her bowl refills. She hopes Barb doesn’t think she dislikes it, she just can’t keep up with the appetites of the Madeiras.

 

They finish the meal with idle talk. Barb and Gus blather on about a few of the more prominent families on the island. Clarke glances between them, doing her best to show interest in the conversation, but occasionally her eyes glance over toward Lexa. She appears to have tuned their conversation out completely, rarely looking up from her plate. Clarke wonders what she thinks about, where her mind is in times like this. She hasn’t been around Lexa much, but her mind seems to constantly work on its own.

 

On one occasion, though, as Clarke’s eyes slip over to her long, elegant neck, her sharp jawline and cheekbones, she catches Clarke’s eyes. She feels her face turn red under Lexa’s gaze and she wishes she could blame it on the heat of the stew or the warmth of the house.

 

As Clarke works on the last few bites she can manage, Lexa peels off the foil from the pie at the center of the table.

 

“Dutch apple caramel,” she says as Lexa looks up, before she can ask.

 

“Should we heat it up a little bit?”

 

“Yes,” Lexa says, moving for the oven before Barb can get out of her seat. “I think we have some vanilla ice cream in the freezer, too.”

 

“Give this girl a pie and she’s all talk.”

 

“I like it,” Clarke says with a smile.

 

Lexa stops in her tracks on the way to the freezer and looks back at Clarke’s smile. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth before she can smile in return.

 

“Clarke, where’d you learn to cook these pies?”

 

“I did it as a distraction, I guess. Taught myself.”

 

“Distraction from what?” Gus asks.

 

Clarke looks up at him and sees Lexa over his shoulder, her eyes reminding Clarke of the advice she gave the previous night.

 

She could tell them about the first time she pulled out her grandmother’s old recipe book. Just a month after he’d died she found it in a kitchen cabinet, a picture of him as a kid tucked into the cover. Or, she could tell them about the first time she baked her mom a pie, just after graduation. How she’d cried and Clarke thought she knew why but her mom wouldn’t say.

 

“Life,” she says with a sigh, not willing to let on any further.

 

She looks back up behind Gus and Lexa looks back, with a nod.

 

Lexa serves Gus and Barb their pie in the living room, to enjoy in front of the fire. Clarke hangs back to serve the pie and ice cream with Lexa, dancing around each other in the kitchen in silence. When Lexa sits back at her spot at the kitchen table to eat, Clarke sits down beside her.

 

Once again, Lexa doesn’t say a word until she’s nearing the last bite, like she hasn’t even realized Clarke’s beside her. Clarke watches her, just because she feels like she can. Lexa is so unencumbered when she’s like this and Clarke feels like she can steal a glace or two.

 

“Clarke,” she starts, and Clarke can see that her eyes are closed. She feels herself leaning closer. “Clarke.” She likes the sound of her name tumbling from Lexa’s lips.

 

Come to a sudden realization, she opens her eyes and furrows her brow at Clarke. “You’re not having any?”

 

“Too full,” Clarke says. It’s a shame, because this pie is one of her favorites.

 

“How about just a bite?” Lexa says.

 

Clarke nods her head, as if to say okay and Lexa holds the last forkful in front of Clarke. There’s more pie, and of course Lexa’s probably going to have seconds (and then thirds after she’s gone), but it feels special that she’s offering Clarke her last bite.

 

She takes a leap because it feels like her time on Miller’s Island calls for one. She knows she could reach out and grab the other end of the fork, take a bite and hand it back. She’s knows it’s an option.

 

Instead, she starts to lean forward into the bite. Lexa shifts uncomfortably and it gives her pause. Maybe this is not the time for a leap after all.

 

She looks up to see Lexa’s eyes on her lips and Lexa swallowing in a gulp of air. Lexa’s eyes swirl as she leans just the tiniest bit further to wrap her lips around the last bite on the fork.

 

She’s pretty sure she’s the one that quietly moans at the taste, but she’s not completely sure. Lexa’s got a glazed look in her eyes and Clarke feels herself breathing heavily.

 

“It’s time. Lexa, Clarke...” Barb’s voice carries from the living room and Lexa looks away.

 

Lexa gets up suddenly and stands at the counter, leaving Clarke to take a deep breath and join Gus and Barb in the living room.

 

“Alright, now you’re in for the old Miller family after-dinner tradition, Clarke,” Barb says as Gus throws another log on the fire.

 

“We don’t have to do it,” he says.

 

“Of course we do.”

 

“Let her choose at least,” Lexa says, coming in from the kitchen with another piece of pie.

 

“Not in this house. She eats our food, now she has to play.”

 

Lexa’s jaw juts out and Clarke can see her winding up and, though it’s cute, she doesn’t want to start some household crisis.

 

She can barely stand it. “It’s ok Lexa, I’ll do whatever I have to do.” She says it with a wink in Lexa’s direction and just a moment later, Lexa’s coughing and sputtering on her pie.

 

“Rummy,” Barb says, shuffling a pack of cards.

 

“Oh. I can do that,” Clarke says, so eager that she almost rubs her hands together. “I thought I was about to be forced to go skinny-dipping or something, the way you three were talking.”

 

“We do take our rummy seriously.”

 

“I can take it pretty seriously, too. My dad, mom, and I used to play a lot, when I was younger. It was our rainy day game.”

 

Lexa pulls one of the chairs up across the table from her. The flames from the fire dance in her eyes.

 

“So who’s the champ that I have to take down?”

 

Lexa’s got her bottom lip pulled between her teeth to hold back a smile and Clarke can feel herself doing the same.

 

Barb’s busy shuffling, but Gus must catch some part of their silent exchange as he clears his throat and then chokes and then shuffles to the fridge for a beer.

 

“Get anyone else another?”

 

He comes back with four beers, despite the lack of response.

 

It’s heated.

 

And they’re good.

 

Barb’s got a tell when she’s close to laying down her whole hand. Her eyes go wide and she looks around at each of them and Clarke quickly learns that she should make some unexpected move, just to throw Barb off her game.

 

Gus talks and talks and talks and she shouldn’t be surprised that for one hand, he talks her right out of picking up a few cards she needs in the discard pile.  

 

Lexa’s a silent assassin, though. She watches, eyes bright and wild now, flitting between Gus and Barb and Clarke. Clarke catches her eyes a few times at the height of their tempestuousness. She usually follows up with a gulp of beer, anything to tame the thudding of her heart.

 

Lexa’s the only one that she can’t read at all. It’s her downfall as Lexa closes out hand after hand.

 

She doesn’t gloat at the end of the game. Clarke knows if she were the winner, she’d definitely be rubbing it in Gus and Barb’s faces for as much talking and jesting as they do.

 

Instead, as the game winds down, Barb heads to bed, complaining about another early morning. Gus looks like he wants to keep playing or talking or drinking beers, but after a mysterious look from Lexa, he claims to have forgotten some chore he has to take care of in the kitchen.

 

“Thanks for inviting me tonight,” Clarke says quietly, once she hears the dishes clinking in the sink in the other room.

 

Lexa looks up at her and nods. The fire crackles now, slowing down, and her eyes don’t look near as bright and wild, though they still swirl and reel Clarke in.   
  
"Not one for small talk, are you?”

  
"Not much, no."

 

“Walk me home, then?” It’s another leap, her second of the night. Miller’s Island doesn’t have any crooks or criminals prowling the streets, so she doesn’t need Lexa’s protection. She’s sure Lexa knows that when she stands and collects Clarke’s coat from the bannister, holding it so that Clarke can put it on. Lexa’s closer than she has been all night and despite the warmth of the coat, Clarke shivers at the feel of Lexa’s breath on the back of her neck.

 

She turns, hoping to see the fire back in Lexa’s eyes, but instead Lexa’s glancing into the kitchen, trying to read Gus’s lips as he mouths something to her silently. He stops abruptly when Clarke looks over at him.

 

It’s cold, but they stroll slowly through the darkened streets.

  
"I had a nice time tonight. Maybe my first night here that I won't go to bed wondering if I made the right decision."

  
Lexa just looks at her again, the sea in her eyes.

  
She doesn’t say a word, but Clarke responds. "I'm sorry. I do like it here. It's just been hard."

  
"Do you want to come out on the water with us tomorrow?"

  
It's not what she's expecting and her first instinct is rejection, a "that's too much," or "oh, I couldn't." She has to dig for it, but she's reminded of one of her last trips with her dad, sometime in early high school. She remembers a botched canoeing trip that ended in a lost paddle, an upturned canoe, and a lesson. Always a lesson from Jake Griffin.

  
"I'd like that."

  
"Early."

  
"I can do early."

  
"Three thirty."

 

“That is early.”

 

“You don’t have to come out tomorrow. Could take you out on our day off on Sunday.”

  
"No, I’d love to come tomorrow. I’m just going to have to set my real alarm and not let the sun wake me. What should I bring?"

  
"Wear layers. We have some extra slickers for once we get out there."

  
"Lunch?"

  
"Bring that."

  
"Thanks, Lexa."

  
She nods.

  
"Oh," Clarke stops and turns around. Lexa's hasn't moved. Clarke reaches out and gently traces her fingers over the fading green and purple skin at the edge of Lexa's eyelid. Her fingers graze Lexa's long lashes and for an instant, her eyes flutter shut. It's the first time she's seen a moment of vulnerability and she knows that she'll come to crave it. She'll long to watch Lexa's eyes flutter shut and open back onto her face, to catch her eyes and talk to her without a word passing between them. "This looks better," Clarke whispers, fingers trailing away. Lexa looks down at her hand and nods.

  
If she wanted to take another leap, Clarke would invite her in. And the next morning, she'd call Raven and tell her that she'd found someone who could make her never forget the touch of another human being. Then she’d make some joke about Lexa the Lifeguard. They'd laugh and Clarke would know she'd made the right choice.  
  
Tonight’s the first time that she’s been brave on Miller’s Island in some days. She's used it all up in her first several weeks and it has tossed her around and spit her back out. She can feel it rebuilding, but she’s not quite there yet.   
  
Instead, she says a quiet goodnight and watches Lexa walk back out into the darkness. Perhaps, she thinks, tomorrow will offer another chance to be brave.


	6. Chapter 6

_**“Teach me too, that wondrous song!”** _

 

 

 

 

Three-thirty comes quickly, particularly after a later than usual night.

 

Lexa, Gus, and a slew of other watermen are on the docks when she arrives. In fact, it’s so crowded and dark that she’s worried she won’t find their boat before they leave. She imagines they’ll leave soon, like most of the other watermen. And, she imagines they’ll leave with or without her. Gulls squawk overhead and a rough chop occasionally crashes against the docks.

 

“Clarke?”

 

Lexa’s got a beanie pulled down to her eyes and a long braid twisted down her back. Her flannel shirt is just visible beneath a waffle-knit henley and she’s pulled on her slickers and boots, which look wet already.

 

“Sorry,” Clarke says with a smile, pulling down the fleece wrap from her face, “it’s me under here. You said to wear layers, right?”

 

Lexa nods and reaches for the bags that Clarke’s brought before leading her toward the end of the dock.

There’s more people here than she’s ever seen in one place on the island. Boats rock with the water and with the jostling of the watermen, who hustle between revving their engines, readying gear on deck, and shouting above the din about the weather.

 

She doesn’t notice him until she’s nearly on board their boat, but Jonny’s boat is docked next to the Madeira’s. He doesn’t say a word, but does a double take when he sees Clarke climb aboard their boat. His black eye is fading, too, though slower than Lexa’s and Clarke can’t help but smile, safe beneath the fleece that covers her mouth. He doesn’t look her way again.

 

Not five minutes goes by before they become one of the last boats at the dock. Gus yells a few unintelligible things to Lexa from inside of the cabin before Lexa hustles Clarke into the warmth of the cabin with him.

 

“I’ve been trying to tell you to come in here,” he says, cheeks red from the heat blasting to counter the crisp, early morning gusts along the water.

 

“There’s so much going on, so many people,” she says, looking around at the few boats and watermen that still remain in their slips.

 

“Like this every morning.”

 

“For a while, I’ve thought that Miller’s Island is so sleepy and serene, but it is totally different out here at 3:30.”

 

“Don’t think I could survive your version of Miller’s,” Gus says with a laugh, before revving the engine. Clarke feels the boat jolt from the dock and begin its move out to the open bay.

 

It feels like they’re going fast and far. The force of the wind and speed tip of the bow of the boat into the air. Gus doesn’t look concerned, but Clarke feels herself grip the bench she’s sitting on.

 

Outside of the cabin, Lexa’s a blur. In one moment, she’s pulling at a metallic net and hooking up some big mechanical arm that’s hanging from the boat. In another moment, she’s around the side, hanging over the edge so far that Clarke’s sure she’s going to go for a swim.

 

The boat’s at full speed for about thirty minutes more before the engine cuts out and Gus joins Lexa on the deck. Clarke considers huddling in the warmth of the cabin for a bit longer, but she wants Gus and Lexa’s version of Miller’s Island, not her own, and what’s going on outside of the cabin draws her out.

 

When Gus sees her on the deck next to him, he talks her through the steps to setting up the dredge, as Lexa completes each task. It’s clear from the way Lexa huffs and pulls and stands on the tips of her toes that, although she’s perfectly capable of running the whole show on her own, Gus’s strength and height are absolutely needed.

 

Soon enough everything’s set and the real work begins. Clarke finds a place on the deck out of their way and can’t take her eyes off of how perfectly choreographed every move is.

 

If she had to name it, it would seem that thus far, Lexa’s weakness has been Clarke’s pies.

 

After just a few minutes with her eyes trained on Lexa’s work, she knows that, whether on purpose or not, Lexa has invited Clarke right into her own weakness.

 

Lexa at sea is her weakness.

 

It's a dance.

 

A dance to the winds and the rolling rhythms of the waves.

 

The only music is the thwap of the net against the water, the crash of the waves against the side of the boat, the grunts of Lexa and Gus as they maneuver and jostle and pull.

 

After a few turns, she can see clearly that Lexa is the dancer, Gus just her partner.

 

Lexa’s eyes are wild again, matching the sea. Her thin, lithe body heaves against the machinery, long legs covered the width of the deck is just a step and a half. Her hands works quickly, thin gloves to protect them from the salt and cold air. She’s barely finished one thing before she’s on to the next, and Gus’s eyes are always watching her, following her lead.

 

She finds herself falling further into those eyes with each crash of the waves, until she’s abruptly shaken out of her haze.

 

“Lunch time,” Gus yells, more for Lexa’s benefit than Clarke’s. In fact, when he turns and Lexa looks up, it’s almost like they’ve forgotten that she’s on board.

 

They shuffle back into the warmth of the cabin, Lexa pulling off her beanie and unbuckling the top part of her slickers. Her cheeks are red with the cold and Clarke wonders if the warmth of her hands on Lex’a cheeks might soothe her.

  
"Lex, can you get me one of the sandwiches?" Gus asks as he starts up the engine once more.

  
"I brought lunch,” Clarke cries out over the thrumming of the motor. She rustles into one of the bags she brought and pulls out two large thermoses.

 

Lexa doesn't move and she can feel Lexa's eyes on her as she pulls out her camping mugs and bowls and spoons and portions out each thermos. She'd hoped that these thermoses, bought at a time when she thought she and her dad might take their last trip out to camp, would hold up to time and weather, and it looks like they have.

 

The stew and tea steam from their containers and Gus slows the boat’s motor to a stop again, until the boat is rocking softly with the waves.

  
"You made us lunch?" he says, grin creeping across his face as Clarke hands him a bowl.

 

"It was the least I could do, really. You've both been so kind and generous. Your aunt, too."

  
"Only after you fed us pie."

  
"Well, I'm still feeding you, so if that's what it takes, I'm happy to keep up my end of the bargain."

  
She watches as Lexa huddles over the bowl and the steam warms her face. Her lashes dance against her cheeks and flutter open again and she looks at Clarke. Clarke can feel the gratitude, even if she doesn't hear it, and she offers Lexa a small smile in return before Lexa ducks back down and spoons a bite into her waiting mouth. 

  
"Oh it's so good, Clarke. I don’t even think I can put the boat back into gear again, it’s got me totally discombobulated. Think this is better than Mom's, Lex?"

  
Lexa doesn't answer, too busy dragging her spoon across the bowl to get the last bites.

  
Gus doesn't need an answer. "That's what I thought," he says, with a hearty laugh. 

 

The waves rock the boat as Gus finishes his portion. She figures that sandwiches, probably from Barb’s, are their usual fare. And, based on the quiet and hint of awkwardness in the air, they probably eat and go, go, go. Given what she’s seen thus far, they don’t have much time for idle talk or recreation. When they’re at work, they work. And they seem to love it.

  
"I have some more, if you want.”

  
Lexa nearly jumps from her seat. "Yes. Please."

  
"So the big guy over here doesn't get seconds?"

  
"Fuck off, Gus. You can eat the sandwiches."

  
Gus's booming laugh coincides with the throttle of the engine and the lurch of the boat as they continue on their journey.  
  
When Lexa finishes scraping her bowl for the second time, Clarke resumes her position on the bench near the back, watching as Lexa moves in and out of the cabin. Her eyes always watching, matching the movement of the sea, her body always at the ready. She pulls the nets and the machinery back around, readying for their afternoon spot.  
  
It doesn't take long for the adrenaline of the morning to catch up with her after lunch. Except, rather than feeling sleepy, her stomach begins to churn. The chop gets rougher, she thinks, though she can't confirm it. Both Gus and Lexa don't seem to have noticed. The exhaust from the boat's motor seeps into her nose and lingers, and the savory smell of beef stew is quickly forgotten.   
  
"Looking a little green there, Clarke," Gus says as he steps back into the cabin. He flips the motor to a low thrum.

  
She opens her eyes to see Gus staring back at her. Lexa's out on the bow, adjusting something with the machinery and she's glad Lexa isn't privy to this conversation. She's pretty sure that if she can just get herself to sleep a little, it'll all go away. 

  
"Best to go chum the waters off the stern, mate."

  
As soon as he says it, Clarke feels it. She stumbles out of the cabin and exhaust hits her even harder before she heaves off the back of the boat. 

 

She’s never been one to get seasick, at least not in the early days with her dad. They’d go out paddling, or even on one of his friend’s boats and she’d never have a problem. She even remembers her dad getting sick once, but not her. But it’s been years since she’s been out in weather like this. Maybe those years have caught up with her, she thinks.

  
It's not long before she feels a hand on her back, rubbing against the slicker Lexa had told her to pull on when she boarded.

  
"We're headed back," Lexa nearly yells against the sound of the wind. 

  
She feels doubly miserable, then, to have been the reason they had to end the day early. She figures it’s probably not even noon and she’s ruined their full day on the water.

  
"No, don't," she whines, but realizes she barely has a voice.

  
Lexa holds a water bottle up and Clarke takes a swig and spits it back out to the sea. 

 

 

 

 

They’re the first boat back.  


If she still didn’t feel so woozy and out of sorts, she’d feel worse about the early end to their day.

 

As soon as Lexa helps her to land, she hears the whir of the engine and Gus is gone.

 

“You should go back out with him.” She’s less convincing as she stumbles over a warped wood plank and Lexa holds her arm tighter.

 

“Not happening, Clarke. Let’s get you home and feeling better. He can manage without me for the afternoon.”

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

“If I hadn’t invited you out with us, you wouldn’t be ralphing all over the place.”

 

The word alone throws her into a tailspin. She leans to the side and grips one of the dock’s pilings, heaving the little that’s left of the contents of her stomach.

 

She feels Lexa’s hand rubbing against her back again when she comes back into awareness.

 

And she feels more embarrassed than ever before.

 

“I can’t believe I’m throwing up in front of you.” From flirty glances and eating off of Lexa’s fork to vomiting over the side of her boat, all in the last twenty-four hours.

 

“It happens,” she says with a laugh as they near the end of the dock.

 

“That doesn’t make me feel much better,” Clarke says as they start off toward her cottage. Lexa’s hand is still at her back, gently guiding her.

 

“Ok, how about this then? Last year, we had a day so rough that we were one of only three boats that went out,” her eyes are wide and wild as she turns to Clarke. “Gus – big, huge, man-child Gus – lost his breakfast not twenty minutes out. Threw up all over the deck, too. We had to come back and spray it down and it froze over the deck. Couldn’t go out for the rest of the day, not that we should have.”

 

“That does make me feel a little bit better. Never happened to you though?” Clarke turns to her, expecting the question is a good set up for whatever clever saying Lexa might have stowed away.

 

“I’m a true waterman, Clarke.” Lexa turns to her and matches her smile.

 

The rest of the slow, steady walk to Clarke’s cottage is mostly good-natured ribbing from Clarke about what is means to be a true waterman, and good-natured ribbing from Lexa about how Clarke is surely not a true waterman.

 

 

 

The house is so warm when they enter that she thinks should could sleep for a day on the comfy couch in front of the fireplace.

 

But she doesn’t forget her guilt before she expects Lexa to go.

 

“I’ve got some cash stashed upstairs to make up for your losses today,” she says, as she slowly starts to pull off her layers.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Lexa says, watching Clarke, “we did just about as well as any other day.”

 

“Let me just…” Clarke stumbles, her stomach lurches, and she careens into the couch.

 

“Outside,” Lexa says. There’s some force to her voice and Clarke doesn’t have the energy to disagree. Lexa sits her on the rocker on her porch and shuffles inside, returning in minutes with the layers she pulled off, another jacket, a pair of blankets, and a bucket.

 

“You need the cold.”

 

Clarke nods.

 

Lexa then dips back inside and returns with some sort of concoction in a drinking glass.

 

“Not sure why you have fresh ginger, but lucky you do. Drink.”

 

“Pie,” Clarke mumbles before taking the first of several slow sips. It’s some mixture of loads of freshly cut ginger and lemon and maybe a touch of honey.

 

Lexa’s eyes linger on her, watching her take each sip. When it seems Clarke’s relaxed into her chair, Lexa looks out over the water. They’re one and the same, Lexa’s eyes and the water. They swirl and chop and leave her dizzy.

 

 

 

Clarke’s not sure how long she’s been sleeping. When she wakes, the sun has nearly set and Lexa’s looking at her again.

 

“Pie?” she asks.

 

“Apple ginger cinnamon. On the table, wrapped in foil.”

 

“You ready to go back inside?” Lexa asks, looking her up and down. She knows she’s not much of a sight, wrapped in jackets and blankets, the tip of her nose red, but Lexa’s gaze still makes her catch her breath.

  
“Is it because you want to eat my pie?”

 

Lexa’s eye brow raises, then she stands, holding her hands out to Clarke’s. Her hands are frigid and Clarke realizes that Lexa’s been sitting out in the cold without a blanket or jacket this whole time.

 

For once, Lexa doesn’t go for the pie first. She helps Clarke out of her jackets and prepares another mug of her seasickness concoction. Once Clarke is sat across from her at the table, she slowly pulls the pie closer and peaks under the foil.

 

“Well go on, then,” Clarke says with a smile. It feels like something Barb might say to Lexa and Lexa gives her a shy look from beneath her lashes.

 

She’s on her second piece before Clarke thinks to talk to her. The walls she raises every morning come crashing down when she’s eating, Clarke thinks. All of her thoughts and feelings laid bare, she doesn’t even need to talk to her to know what she’s thinking.

 

But she still loves the sound of Lexa’s voice.

 

“Is it good?” Clarke’s wrapped under the blankets, her hands clutching a mug of tea. Lexa, across the table, is hovering over her second piece.

 

Lexa replies with a hum and spoons another mouthful.

 

“You want any real food? I’ve got some more stew and bread.”

 

Lexa looks at her from across the table, a spoon full of pie paused in front of her mouth, and Clarke doesn’t even need an answer. She raises to her feet shakily, pulls the pot out of the fridge and sets it on the stove top.

 

Another long silence fills the void as Lexa takes spoon after spoon of stew. When she’s done, she looks up at Clarke again, “Where’d you learn to cook with linguiça?”

 

“I bought some off of Barb, may have gotten some pointers then.”

 

“I’d have thought you had a little Madeira in you, otherwise,” Lexa says with a smile. Clarke likes the way the crow’s feet crinkle at the corner of Lexa’s eyes, even if one of those eyes is still a little green from defending her honor.

 

“I should get going. Early morning and all.”

 

“Right. Do you want some stew to take home? Maybe take for lunch tomorrow? Some pie?”

 

“Can’t say no to that.”

 

“Thank you, Lexa,” Clarke starts, her voice a little shaky. “For inviting me today. For taking me home. For taking care of me.”

 

Lexa’s suddenly silent again, but Clarke can see the response in her eyes. She holds Clarke’s eyes for longer and Clarke nearly misses that she’s licked her lips and tucked her own lip between her teeth.

 

Lexa gets up from the table and walks toward Clarke and Clarke wants to put her hand on Lexa’s face, to feel her jaw, to cup her cheek, to watch her eyes flutter again. Instead, Lexa stops just short and looks down at Clarke, their height difference magnified by their proximity.

 

“Thank you, Clarke,” she says. The cold of the day has broken her voice. It comes out gravelly and Clarke wonders if it’s like that after every cold day out on the water.  

 

It feels like a thank you that’s a lot bigger than a couple bowls full of stew and slices of pie. Clarke’s heart pounds and her mouth goes dry and she realizes that she’s on the verge of a kind of bravery that could change the way she views Miller’s Island yet again.  

 

Instead, she breaks Lexa’s gaze and looks down at the floor, whispering, “Goodnight, Lexa.”

 

Something’s there. She can feel it and she knows Lexa can, too.


	7. Chapter 7

_ **“Wouldst thou learn the secret of the sea?”** _

 

 

Staying true to their new tradition, the next morning Clarke leaves a note on the Madeira doorstep. The quaintness of the island has come on full force in the last couple of days and she can’t help but smile that the best method of communication seems to be leaving notes in darkened doors. 

  
  


_ Hi to my favorite watermen! _

_ I would love to have you both over for dinner tonight to say thank you -- and sorry! -- for our adventure yesterday. _

_ Clarke _

 

_ (I have pie!) _

  
  
  


Lexa’s at her doorstep at exactly 5:30, bottle of wine and six-pack of beer in hand.

 

“Wasn’t sure which one would go with dinner,” she says sheepishly as soon as Clarke opens the door. 

 

It’s the first time Clarke’s seen her without ratty work pants and a worn flannel. Instead, Lexa’s wavy hair lies loosely against an open, patterned cardigan. Beneath, she’s got on a light blue oxford shirt that looks like it’s perhaps seen better days, but at least not out on the water. Her pants are a darker denim, with a much better fit than her work pants. 

 

“What?” The corners of Lexa’s mouth are turned up, like she knows the exact answer that Clarke’s thinking but won’t say.

 

“I’m just…” Clarke starts, then clears her throat and meets her eyes, “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

 

Lexa’s eyes crinkle and Clarke feels like it’s a bit of a mistake to look into them so early in the night, before a glass of wine, even. 

 

“Well you look mighty fine yourself, if that’s what you’re saying.” 

 

Tonight, Clarke’s opted to dress up. She’d put these clothes in the back of her closet when she first moved in. They didn’t seem “Miller’s Island” enough. She started getting ready in the early afternoon pulling on different pairs of jeans, putting her hair up, giving it a slight curl. And then she remembered this top and this skirt hidden among the flannels and she stopped thinking about any other options. 

 

“Gus coming?” Clarke asks as she watches Lexa walk through the living room and  into the kitchen. She tries to put a hint of hope in the question, just for Gus’s sake. But as it leaves her mouth, the only hope she has is that the answer is ‘no.’ 

 

Lexa hovers around the counter, her back to Clarke and sniffing audibly. Clarke knows what she’s looking for. 

 

“Still in the oven.” 

 

She turns back to Clarke, “I was getting worried I’d have to leave.”

 

“Why?”

 

“You promised pie,” she says with a wicked grin. 

 

“I don’t break my promises.”

 

“Gustus went to the mainland.” It takes a moment for Clarke to realize that Lexa’s answering her question in her own time. 

 

“What’s he doing there?”

 

Her back is to Clarke again and she sees Lexa crouch to look into the oven’s window. “What kind of pie is it?”

 

“Pumpkin cheesecake.” 

 

“Seeing family,” Lexa says. It’s muffled as she says it from her crouch, but just loud enough for Clarke to hear. 

 

“You didn’t go, too?” It’s a gamble, to pull this out of Lexa, but she hopes that she might open up when it’s just the two of them. 

 

“I’ve had regular pumpkin before,” Lexa starts. No luck getting her to open up yet. Maybe after a drink or two. “I’ve had regular cheesecake before. Never had them put together.” Her eyes go wide as she looks at Clarke from across the room. Her arms rest against the counter as she leans against it and she looks as inviting as Clarke supposes a pie might look to Lexa. It takes a conscious thought to stop herself from crossing the room and…whatever it is she might do next. Clarke has to push that thought to the side before she acts on it and  it ruins her night. Or the only real friendship she has on this Island, if she’s being honest with herself. 

 

“I think you’re going to like it. I hope so, at least.” 

 

“Would imagine so.”

 

Suddenly, it’s quiet enough that Clarke can hear the drip from the leaky faucet in the bathroom. Lexa’s eyes meet hers and stay for a moment. It reminds her of the night she ran into Lexa at Barb’s, the night Lexa fought Jonny, the night that she first saw the sea in Lexa’s eyes. 

 

It’s over in a moment. Perhaps. The pie could be burning and the Island could be flooding and in that moment she’s not sure she would realize either one. 

 

Lexa’s gaze drops down Clarke’s body. It feels a bit purposeful and she does the same in kind. When Lexa seems to realize she’s been caught she whips her head around, looking back toward the living room. 

 

“How about a grand tour?”

 

“There’s not much grand about this place, but it would be my pleasure.”

 

The tour is actually longer than she’d anticipated when she thought about it earlier in the day. That imaginary tour also involved Gus. On that tour, she wasn’t considering lingering in the bathroom, with the candles lit. Nor on that imaginary tour was she considering stopping for several minutes to discuss the history of the small wood stove in her bedroom. Just the same, she doesn’t mind listening to Lexa talk excitedly in her bedroom about the wood stoves in the cabins of Miller’s Island. (Even if she is talking about a stupid wood stove.) 

 

By the time they’re back in the kitchen, Clarke has to hustle to the stove to stop the pot from boiling over. 

 

“We’re not having pie for dinner?” Lexa asks after she sees that there are no culinary emergencies. 

 

“You have to eat dinner to get dessert.” Clarke pauses. There’s something dirty on the tip of her tongue, but she’s not ready for that yet. But, that thought does remind her…

 

“How about we open that wine?”

 

Lexa uncorks the bottle and pours Clarke a glass, then cracks a beer open for herself. 

 

“Toast?” 

 

Lexa pulls the beer bottle back from her lips like she’s been caught. 

 

“I just want to thank you - and Gus and Barb, though they’re not here of course - for welcoming me to Miller’s Island.”

 

Lexa lifts her bottle and clinks Clarke’s glass before they both take a sip. 

 

“You’ve shaken things up on the Island, you know?”

 

Clarke can’t tell whether Lexa means it in a good or bad way. “Have I?” 

 

“The ladies are all wondering what you put in those pies. And the boys can’t stop giving you the eyes, even Mr. Bob. Gustus keeps saying you’re ‘a hell of a woman’ and even if she won’t say it outright, I know that Barb loves your company.”

 

Clarke feels herself blush and looks away, worried she might start crying. Since her arrival on Miller’s Island, she thinks she’s experienced more dark days than light. Through those times, she’s struggled to remember why she bought this little piece of land on this tiny island. 

 

“I think my dad would have liked it here” is all she can manage to say in response, though his words echo through her mind. Some day soon she’ll tell Lexa about how he liked to go fishing from the pier with his toes skimming the water and how he used to read Dr. Seuss to Clarke every night, even though they’d both memorized every word of every book. 

 

Lexa holds her eyes for a moment longer and when she gives a slight nod, Clarke knows that she doesn’t need to say any more for now. She knows that there will be one day, too, when Lexa will tell her about her father and their how their lives intertwined just up the road and not too far out at sea. 

 

When she turns back to the pot on the stove, Lexa disappears into the living room. She hears wood hit the stone and after a few more minutes a fire starts to crackle. 

 

By the time Lexa’s back in the kitchen, dinner’s on the table and Clarke is refilling her glass of wine.

 

“If I eat all my dinner,” Lexa says as she sits down, “can I have extra dessert?”

 

She glances over to the pie cooling on the counter, but Clarke’s eyes train on her instead. “I’ll give you as much as you want,” she says. Her voice is huskier than intended and Lexa whips her head back toward Clarke. Her lips slowly part and her eyes widen before she clears her throat and Clarke feels her face go red. She’s still too chicken to stare back at Lexa and instead busies herself examining dinner. 

 

Lexa closes her eyes a few times during dinner, after what Clarke assumes is an especially gratifying bite, and Clarke takes every opportunity during those times to glance up and study her. The jaw that sharpens each time she closes her mouth. That long, elegant neck that’s too often covered with a hat or hoodie. The toned forearm that grips her fork like she’ll never eat another meal. 

 

If the meal is gratifying, then the pie is a religious experience. Lexa’s eyes are closed nearly the entire time, quiet hums of satisfaction fill the room with each bite. Clarke barely has a taste of the small sliver that she’s cut herself. She’s too wrapped up in Lexa’s pleasure. 

 

“That’s all you’re going to have?” Lexa asks. She’s finished her first piece and Clarke’s just taken her second bite. 

 

“This might sound crazy, but I’m not that into sweets.”

 

“That’s not crazy. It’s insane. How? Why?” She tosses questions at Clarke as she reaches across the table to fork a bite from Clarke’s plate. 

 

“Never really got into it. But I know other people like it, and you especially. You’re a fiend for pies.”

 

“Just a fiend for your pie.”

 

There’s a joke there. It’s right on the tip of her tongue. If Lexa were Raven, Clarke would have fallen on the floor in laughter before she could even get it out. And Raven would be right down there rolling on the floor with her, finishing her words between gasping laughs and hiccups. 

 

But Lexa looks away and then stands up quickly and Clarke just has to pull her bottom lip between her teeth and wonder. 

 

The fire’s died back down during dinner and as Clarke cuts Lexa her second piece of pie, she finds Lexa crouched down next to the fire. 

 

“You’re pretty good at that firestarting thing,” she says, setting Lexa’s plate and her bottle of wine on a side table as she tucks her legs beneath herself on the couch. 

 

“Are there people out there who aren’t good at it?” The fire dances in Lexa’s eyes when she turns back toward Clarke.

 

“Us mainlanders aren’t.”

 

“You can’t start a fire?” She turns back and pokes at the logs, lifting embers into the flue. 

 

“Much to my embarrassment, and probably my father’s too, no I cannot. At least not without the assistance of one of those fuel-soaked logs you can buy at the store.”

 

“You can buy those at a store?” 

 

Clarke laughs. 

 

“You can. I have a few stashed away here somewhere. I can’t live in this house without a fire, I think. It’s just made to have a fire going in the fireplace and a warm pie cooling on the kitchen counter.”

 

“I’ll drink to that,” Lexa says, holding up her bottle before taking a swig. Clarke uses the quiet moment to refill her wine glass and bring it to her lips. Lexa’s eyes follow the fire’s ebbs and flows as she settles next to Clarke on the couch. 

 

It has to be the fireplace. She thinks it and she knows that she’s wrong, but she forces herself to think it anyway. It has to be the fireplace that’s got her cheeks flushing and hands sweating and her heart beating a little faster. When the pie’s all gone, Lexa’s arm drapes over the back of the couch, not quite touching Clarke, but close enough for her to notice. If Clarke just leans back a little more and Lexa’s hand...

 

“Why would your dad be embarrassed by that?” It’s just a whisper and Lexa’s still looking into the fire, even after she asks it. Clarke looks into the fire to see what she sees. 

 

“He tried to teach me.” She has to stop. Something’s caught her voice. She takes a few deep breaths. This doesn’t usually happen. Not any more. 

 

“You can still learn,” Lexa says, looking over at her. “I’ll teach you.”

 

Clarke nods and leans back. It feels like the right moment. “I’d like that.”

 

“Can’t do it tonight. Already got the fire started.” She feels Lexa’s hand against her right shoulder, warm and still. 

 

Clarke turns to Lexa, knee pulling up on the couch and crowding Lexa. “You strike me as someone who learned how to start fires by getting in trouble,” she says with a knowing look. 

 

Lexa looks down and smiles and Clarke can see the red creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. 

 

“Come on. I know you must have caused so much trouble on this tiny island.”

 

Lexa’s cheeks blush and Clarke swells. 

 

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

 

“Tell me one story. Just one.” 

 

“You’re desperate.”

 

“I’m desperate to get to know you. You’re a mystery to me.”

 

“Maybe I like it that way.” Her eyes look up and Clarke is almost disarmed. 

 

“Ah ah ah. You’re getting off track. Don’t think I didn’t notice your tricks earlier. Talking about pies instead of answering my questions.”

 

“Alright. One story.”

 

“Yes!” Clarke exclaims, leaning in farther, pushing nearer.  

 

“I always wanted to be out on the water, ever since I was little little, but I wasn’t allowed.”

 

It’s on the tip of Clarke’s tongue to ask why not, but she quickly stops herself. She’s just convinced Lexa to tell a story from her childhood and she doesn’t want get in her way. 

 

“Must have been around fourteen or so, which makes Gus sixteen. He was already going out pretty regularly but he didn’t much like it. Our dad was pretty tough on him.” 

 

Clarke’s downright shocked to hear Lexa mention a parent. She thinks back to the old man in the picture at Barb’s house, the man sitting down with a scowl on his face. 

 

“One night, I’d just about had it with everything. Gus seemed to be about the same. We stayed up late one Saturday night drinking a stash of beer from Barb’s and decided in all our good sense to play a little trick on the watermen.”

 

That wild look is back in Lexa’s eye, just like when they were out on the water yesterday. 

 

“So we go down to the docks. We’re stumbling around, laughing, having a good time. But also thinking about all the rage that’s built up in us. You know - teenage stuff.”

 

It feels like there’s a bit more to that rage. Not just teenage stuff. It lingers. Clarke can see it. Lexa pauses and looks off, like maybe she knows it’s not just teenage stuff, too. 

 

Her voice is quieter when she resumes, but her eyes are just as wild as she looks into the fire. “Gus grabs a few long ropes from one of the sheds by the docks and we start tying them together and looping them through all the boats that are lined up. Sneaky though. We thread them through the sterns so that no one will see it right away. We must have been there for hours. Nearly got caught up in the morning rush.”

 

Lexa’s eyes flit over to Clarke and meet hers. She takes a swig of her beer and then grins. 

 

“We watched them from down on the shore. First old Jimmy gets out. He’s revving his engine and the boat is pulling and pulling. Then, two more guys do the same. Meanwhile, pops is on the dock waiting for Gus, but he’s yelling and yelling and yelling, trying to shout above the rev of those engines. Three guys blew out their engines that day.”

 

“Did you and Gus get caught?”

 

“I think pops suspected. Ma knew. I know Anya knew, but she kept her mouth shut for once.”

 

“And you never got in trouble?”

 

“Never got in trouble. Though it also never really solved our problems either.”

 

Lexa starts to stretch out, her arm instinctively moving even closer to Clarke’s shoulder. Clarke feels her heart thump. But then Lexa pulls her arm back suddenly, her eyes wide. 

 

“It’s ok.”

 

Lexa looks over at her, but Clarke leans into her body, her head tucking against Lexa’s neck and shoulder. 

 

A moment later she feels Lexa take a deep breath and move her arm over her shoulder.  

 

They stay like that for a while. Clarke’s not sure how long, but it feels like she could fall asleep if it wasn’t for the patter inside her chest. Lexa breathes deeply in and out and Clarke’s body moves with each breath.

 

“Will you tell me more about your family? There’s you and Gus and you just mentioned Anya.” She pulls back to study Lexa, who won’t look over at her.

 

Lexa shakes her head.

 

“What if I tell you about my family, then?”

 

“If you want,” Lexa says, her jaw not as hardened as it was just a moment ago.

 

Telling his story doesn’t usually make her sad. She doesn’t cry much. Not any more. 

 

Sometimes she thinks about what he might be doing right now, in this exact moment, if he was still alive. She’d like to think he might be here, on Miller’s Island, in that little bungalow that’s for sale two streets over. She’d like to think that once she’d found her own footing, he’d come back to her, that she wouldn’t have to keep chasing him to other coasts. 

 

She tells Lexa stories. 

 

There’s the story about canoeing so far out that they thought they might be lost at sea. He used to retell that one when he wanted her to remember her strength. 

 

And there’s the story about when he got a flat time on the way to the airport, when she missed her flight back home and the first day of school. He used to retell that one when he wanted her to remember that some things in life are just inevitable. 

 

Lexa listens and laughs at almost every story she can remember. But she looks away for the last story, about his failing health and his last words. 

 

Clarke’s told it so many times. 

 

Telling his story isn’t supposed to make her sad. She’s not supposed to cry. Not any more. 

 

But the tears spill over when she sees his story reflected back to her through Lexa’s eyes. They’re calm and so so green, like an early summer morning at sea.  

 

“I’m sorry to hear about your dad,” Lexa says with a whisper. She covers Clarke’s hand with her own and they sit for a while, until Clarke feels the tears dry. 

 

“What about your dad? Your aunt mentioned him the other day. Sweet until graduation and sour ever since, or something like that?” It’s daring, she knows. But something inside her knows that telling her story has opened Lexa up just a little bit more. Maybe this question is all she needs. 

 

“I don’t…I can’t. I’m sorry, Clarke.”

 

“You can talk to me about that stuff, you know,” she says as she pulls back and caresses Lexa’s palm. “My dad used to tell me that when I’m done talking I can be a pretty good listener.” That line always made her laugh and it’s supposed to make Lexa laugh, too. 

 

“I just…can’t,” she says, her head shaking as she looks into the fire. “I’m sorry, Clarke. I don’t really know…”

 

“No, I shouldn’t push. I just know that sometimes talking about it can help with things. Whenever you’re ready to talk, just know that you can talk to me, ok?”

 

Lexa nods. 

 

“Another drink?” Lexa asks after a few moments, her hand reaching for the wine bottle on the side table. 

 

“I’m about to finish this bottle by myself.”

 

“I’m nearly done my beers, so we’re on the same page.”

 

“Do you like to dance? You’re pretty nimble out there on the water.”

 

Lexa chokes on her last sip. “Dance?”

 

“Yeah, like move your feet to music? Maybe swing your hips - though I doubt you have those kinds of moves,” she teases as she needles a finger into Lexa’s ribs. “Has the dancing fad not made it out here to Miller’s Island yet? Is this place like a modern-day Footloose?”

 

“It hasn’t made it into my body. I can’t.” This ‘can’t’ is different from the others. There’s a smile. There’s a playful look. There’s a little laugh that follows.  

 

“No more can’ts and won’ts and don’ts. This won’t hurt you.” Clarke finds a soft jazz playlist and stands. 

 

“Come on,” Clarke says. She leans over Lexa and pulls the empty bottle from her hand, placing it on the table. She can feel Lexa’s eyes all over her as she leans and she’s grateful for the top she picked out tonight. Her hands extended to pull Lexa from the couch and by the time Lexa’s standing over her, eyes and lips just a few inches away, she’s lost her smile and whispers, “I’ll teach you.”

 

Lexa looks down at first, like she’s never done this before. Her eyes follow their feet as they rock together. Clarke can feel her uneven breaths against her cheek. 

 

On the second song, Lexa’s breath evens out. 

 

“Your hand is cold,” Clarke whispers. 

 

“Maderias are cold-blooded,” she whispers back. Her breath goes shallow again. 

 

“Is that how you can stay out in the cold for so long?” 

 

“And how we can avoid talking about emotions, too.”

 

That’s unexpected. 

 

Clarke’s pushed and pushed and pushed for Lexa to show herself. Now, without a push, in the most intimate position they’ve been in all night, Lexa offers herself up willingly. 

 

“What about good emotions?” Clarke risks the push. 

 

“What about them?”

 

“Do you avoid talking about them, too?”

 

“I prefer to act on good emotions.”

 

It’s Clarke’s breath that goes shallow now. So shallow that it feels like she can’t breathe. She buries her face in Lexa’s neck for the briefest of moments before she leans back and looks at her. An upright bass thrums through the speakers and the fire crackles.

 

She can’t stop herself. This has been building and building and building, maybe since the first time she saw Lexa. 

 

“Your eyes are so beautiful.”

 

Lexa turns her head away but Clarke can see her cheeks rise in a smile as she takes a swig of her last beer. 

 

“I think you know that. I think maybe some pretty girl has told you that before.”

 

Lexa turns back and puts the empty bottle down on the table.

 

“It’s hard to think about all the pretty girls who’ve told me that before when the prettiest girl is telling me that now.” 

 

Their feet are barely moving and Clarke can hear the fire dying down to its last crackles.

 

“You know, when I first met you, I never would have thought I’d hear a line like that come from you. You were all grunts and growls at first. Not that that wasn’t sexy in its own way.”

 

Their eyes follow their own rhythm now, unafraid and yet unsure, flitting to the light taps of the muffled snare.

 

“Sexy, huh? Well, only because you bring it out of me.”

 

It’s tempting to look away. But maybe it’s more tempting to keep looking. 

 

“I think a slice of good pie and a six pack brings it out of you.”

 

Clarke knows that you don’t need to see a person’s whole face to know that they’re smiling, just their eyes. 

 

“That too. Can I kiss you?” 

 

It’s been building and building and building and instead of being surprised or scared, Clarke realizes that it’s completely expected. 

 

“Will this change things?”

 

“Everything.”

 

Maybe that’s exactly what she needs to hear as she nods her head and rests her hand against Lexa’s chest. 

 

Lexa’s lips are soft, softer than any other part of her body. Her hands are strong and Clarke feels one hand snake around her waist and pinch into her sides. 

 

Lexa presses against her and what’s been building spills out into desperation as Clarke leans in further and further until Lexa starts to walk backwards so that she won’t lose her balance and pull them both to the floor. Lexa’s legs hit the couch and she sits, looking up at Clarke. She’s done this before. Countless times. For some reason, though, this time she stops. She stops and looks down at Lexa. She can’t recall a time when she’s seen Lexa from this vantage point. She looks up at Clarke, eyes dark and swirling, but so hopeful.  Clarke sees the storm in her eyes through her long lashes, her hands itch to pull Clarke closer, but merely ask, twitching by Clarke’s waist, rather than pull, demanding. 

 

Clarke moves one knee to the couch, then the other. Her skirt bunches around her waist and she feels Lexa’s hands graze across the ticklish skin of her upper thighs. It pushes her to sink even further into Lexa’s embrace. 

 

Lexa’s mouth is hot on her neck and she tilts her head back. Lexa’s tongue dances a rhythm against her skin and Clarke’s hips move in time. Soon she can’t help but lean in to capture Lexa’s swollen lips between her own. Lexa’s hands grab at her and she feels Lexa move her own hips in time. It’s the start of something she thinks she could finish right here on this couch with just a few more minutes and the steady choreography of their hips. 

 

Lexa pulls back and the look in her eyes tells Clarke she can feel it, too. “If we keep going, I’m afraid I won’t want to stop.”

 

“Do you want to stop?” Clarke’s voice is barely there.

 

“Not really, but I don’t want you to keep going if you don’t want to. Can I tell you something?”

 

It feels like the gates of Heaven have burst open and the angels are calling Clarke inside. It’s a little dramatic, but she can’t help feeling that she’s about to be privy to a revelation. Lexa wants to tell her something. 

 

“Watermen in this area, we have an old saying: ‘the only time the day’s catch is fresh is when it’s still in the ocean.’”

 

She stares at the quilt beside Lexa’s head, trying to work it out in her brain, this old watermen’s saying. 

 

“Gosh, I thought you were about to tell me all of your deepest, darkest secrets. Instead, you compare having sex with me to fish?”

 

They both erupt into a fit of giggles, Clarke curling into Lexa’s body and burying her face against Lexa’s neck. Lexa’s hand clutch at Clarke’s back as her body shakes in laughter. When she finally looks at Lexa again, it’s through tears of laughter. 

 

“I swear I didn’t mean it like that. It means like ‘live for today’ but in watermen speak. You know we’re not too smart.”

 

“Don’t say that. You’re so smart,” Clarke dots her neck with a kiss, “and thoughtful,” another kiss, “and kind,” and another.

 

“Can we get back to the sex-having?”

 

“Too much conversation for you?” Clarke says, pulling back to smile at Lexa. “Too much emotion?”

 

Lexa laughs and Clarke can’t help but capture her lips back between her own.

 

It doesn’t take long for them to move the few feet to Clarke’s bedroom. Without warning, Lexa scoops Clarke up. It takes Clarke by surprise and she has to lock her legs around Lexa’s torso. She’s strong. So strong. Clarke wants to test how strong and the thought of having sex up against a wall just like this crosses her mind. Another time. Hopefully. 

 

Her eyes mirror their joining.  

 

_ Dark and swirling. The ocean in tumult.  _

 

Lexa’s lips and fingertips dance across her skin. Her breath ragged. Clarke’s, too. There’s a rip - her blouse - and she’s unsure who does it, but in mere seconds the thought is forgotten. Lexa’s pants fly across the room and onto the wood stove and there’s a harried and soon hilarious moment where Lexa springs from Clarke’s body to stop the cabin from going up in flames. Full-bodied laughs turn into giggles in necks turn into panting kisses and whispers for more.  Clarke can’t stay still and can’t get enough.  _ Please _ , she hears herself beg and whine in a voice she’s not even sure is her own. Lexa’s fingers get closer with each breathy plea, but not close enough for relief. She’s never felt so desperate or out of control. Her hands grasp on to anything in reach - the headboard, the sheets, Lexa’s back. When Lexa’s fingers finally - finally - sink into her, she’s on the edge immediately. Lexa’s eyes find hers - dark and swirling, the ocean in tumult. She can’t look away until she can’t stop herself. Her hips find their own frenzied rhythm, a voice cries out in relief, in joy, in rapture. Her eyes force themselves shut. 

 

_ Clear and bright. The sun rises over the sea. _

 

When she opens her eyes, she see Lexa rocking above her. Her eyes fluttering shut and arms trembling. Each breath an exaltation. She licks her lips and huffs on every other beat. It’s instinct.  _ Please _ , Clarke begs. It’s not her own pleasure that she’s begging for, but it feels like she needs it just as much. Her fingers grip at Lexa’s hips, pushing into her rhythm. Clarke joins the rhythm and suddenly it’s her own pleasure, too.  _ Please _ , she hears herself beg in that voice that’s not quite her own. Lexa’s eyes flutter again and her hips rock in tighter circles. And then. And then. Her eyes flash open - clear and bright, the sun rises over the sea. Lexa’s hips rock hard against her one, two, three more times, each time pushing deeper, closer. Her mouth falls open and her breath stutters.  _ Clarke _ .  _ Lexa _ , she hears herself say, just before her own mouth falls open. 

 

_ Closed. Dark without the light of the moon.  _

 

At first, Lexa just collapses on top of her. Her breath is stuttered, then heaving, then deep and smooth. Clarke’s fingers eddy along her back, tracing every muscle. And then, Lexa slumps beside her. Eyes closed - dark without the light of the moon.

 

It’s still dark out when she feels Lexa stir beside her. 

 

“Don’t you want to stay?” she asks, her voice heavy with sleep.

 

“Better not.” 

 

When Clarke opens her eyes again Lexa’s at the edge of the bed and pulling her jeans back. Clarke watches, body wrapped in her flannel sheets. 

 

“I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

 

Lexa turns around, the muscles in her back twisting and on display. Clarke sees a reddening spot that can only have been caused just moments - or hours? - ago, when her nails dug into Lexa. “Why would you think that?”

 

“I guess I wasn’t really expecting a fuck-and-run.” 

 

“No,” Lexa says immediately, forcefully. She leans back toward Clarke, still shirtless, and looks into her eyes with purpose. “No, I promise. No. It’s just…”

 

Lexa doesn’t say anything. Clarke tries her dad’s old trick of just waiting it out until the conversation flows back through her, but it never does. Lexa seems frozen in her spot, twisted back to sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. 

 

“Some time?” She asks in a whisper as she moves to wrap her arms around Lexa from behind. 

 

She feels Lexa relax in her arms. “Some time,” she whispers in response as she pulls up Clarke’s hand and kisses her palm.

 

“What time are you waking up tomorrow?”

 

“The Madeiras leave the dock at 4:30 on the dot,” she says in a sing-song voice as she stands, like it’s something she’s heard her entire life. It probably is. 

 

“Ok. Go get some sleep,” Clarke says through her own sleepy smile. “Sweet dreams.”

 

Lexa looks back at her. Clarke thinks that she’s either said just the right thing or just the wrong thing because Lexa is stopped in her tracks.

 

“Come see me tomorrow when you get in?”

 

“Will there be pie?”

 

“Always. Figuratively, too, if that’s what you were asking.”

 

Lexa’s eyes go wide and she nearly trips out of Clarke’s bedroom as she leaves. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come tumbl with me at factorsofex


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